I will add the aim is to destroy America, to the benefit of autocrats AND right wing billionaires around the world. Abortion ban and chaos are an integral part of it. Inevitably, if trump wins, there will be chaos everywhere, protests and such, a perfect environment for the autocrats to cow the populace further, see Belarus and other countries recently destroyed to the benefit of a few. In America, I would guess we are already there about 40% of the way with every institution having been corrupted in the last 8 years but before too by the vast right wing conspiracy that primed a certain section of the society for trump.
Tweet seen:
Ruth Ben-Ghiat
@ruthbenghiat
Folks, he is not going to leave office, ever. Know this before you decide not to vote for Biden. It will be worse than you can imagine and a national security disaster. The aim is to destroy America, to the benefit of autocrats around the world.
While I absolutely believe trump would sign a national abortion ban, he doesn’t have to. He can appoint an acting fda head who will rescind mifepristone approval & an acting ag who will enforce the comstock act. (Remember how he went on about much he loved acting positions over senate hearings for placements?) Back door bans as Jessica said.
I think electing Democrats in 2024 is way too important to feel any reservations about them/us using the issue to get out the vote. In 1992 NARAL opposed (D-PA) Sen Harris Wofford because he was for parental consent. We canargue about whether or not he was right to support the policy, but there's no argument that his loss to Rick Santorum was good for women. (I know this bc my husband worked from Wofford, who also wrote speeches for MLK and the Kennedys and sponsored the bill that brought us Americorp.) Dems have to get to 51% in every swing state, period. If you feel queasy about the strategy of using abortion when it's new, I get it. But also please -everyone - voting inNovember for Dems is easential.
I was wrong- it wasn't Parentla consent. Wofford had run on health care reform and on a national level was pro choce on a national level but wasn't willing to demand that every plan under health reform include coverage for abortion- so catholic health plans could not cover ir. M
David can't remember the exact details - but the point is Wofford lost to Santorum and NARAL's lack of enthusiasm for Wofford in PA did have an impact on the election and he lost. So much more is on the line now.
Project 2025 calls for transforming the CDC into an abortion tracking unit nationwide. Really a pregnancy tracking unit, because given everything they listed that they want to track, they'd basically be tracking every pregnancy outcome. These recommendations were included in the Health and Human Services section of P2025, written by Roger Severino, who's about as Christo-fascist as they come. I wrote about this more than a month ago.
This is one of many reasons why understanding what's in Project 2025 is so important. Christo-fascist Republicans like Katie Britt and Marco Rubio are using this document and its secret tactical companion to implement laws right now, today. They have laid out very clearly and plainly what they plan to do. AND THEY ARE SYSTEMATICALLY DOING IT OR ATTEMPTING TO DO IT. None of this should be a surprise.
Katie Britt - aka Kitchen Barbie - who gave the Republican response to Biden’s SOTU introduced the bill to create the federal database of pregnant women.
I listened to your terrific podcast with Chris Hayes (Why is this Happening?) and am recommending it to everyone. One thing you alluded to, and often allude to in AED, is the domino effect of abortion bans. If women, students, and people generally, as well as doctors, medical residents, and medical students are going to avoid living with states in bans, that is like the states committing slow-motion suicide. Maternity wards will close for lack of doctors, often leading to hospital insolvency or closure, not to mention maternal care deserts. Companies will have more difficulty recruiting workers, who don’t want to be pregnant in a dangerous environment, resulting in higher pay offers which lead ultimately to increased prices, which further alienate potential residents.
With fewer students moving to a state to study medicine or even other disciplines, colleges and universities will either have to reduce their offerings, resulting in fewer jobs and an exodus of professors from the state, or become subsidized by tax dollars which are then unavailable for other state priorities. If medical students won’t apply for residencies in states with bans, the standard of care across the entire spectrum of care will go down—hospitals rely on residents for manpower to provide care. When these red states lose population, the will lose congressional and electoral college representation. This is a downward spiral with many other effects I haven’t mentioned or even thought of that is difficult, if not impossible, to reverse. Why is there not more discussion of this in the press?
The secular hospitals would close, then religious groups then buy those hospitals, and starve the women of their right to standard of care. We see that already.
Where’s the dialog about how women need to protect themselves and help each other avoid an unwanted pregnancy from, for example, a one night stand; a fling with a jerk; a hook up while intoxicated. *Any* voluntary sex causing unwanted pregnancy. Why? Because that’s where actual choice exists. Before it happens. Cause and effect matters. Of course abortion has to become and stay legal everywhere, but women should pivot their thinking about sex now. Today. In red states, especially.
It’s as though discussion about the sex itself is heretical and gets you sent to hell—by the pro-choice side, that is. I don’t call this serving the women most likely to have abortions: young, poor, undereducated and women of color. If women cared deeply about other women, we’d talk about the definition of crappy, unacceptable sex: the kind that makes you pregnant when you don’t want to be. So stop having risky sex. Stop making excuses for other women’s suffering as though unwanted pregnancies are women’s lot in life. Poor us. No such thing as a powerful poor uneducated minority woman. We need to look the other way while she gets pregnant then pull out our self-righteous guns to keep her limited options open—so very limited—once she’s pregnant.
There is a fundamental breakdown in this entire sexual thought process. A short-circuit exists on a large scale.
I’m not talking about rape. This is about voluntary sex that causes unwanted pregnancies and all the ways other women rationalize it rather than working to create a new, better, more powerful paradigm of empowered sexuality when there’s actual choice. Before a pregnancy. Rather than after a pregnancy when a hell of a lot of reactionary activity has to happen as fast as possible while the clock screams off every tick.
If one woman—one!—had cared enough about me to help keep me unpregnant in the mostly male engineering school I went to, so I could’ve avoided the choice between abortion and, yep, suicide, I’d have a different life today. I was too young, naive and religious to know what I didn’t know. All I knew is that a bunch of women believed in abortion. Okay, then how bad could it be? If it was bad, they’d be talking about it. At least a little, right? Hello? Anybody out there?
Afterwards, I wanted to scream to every pro-choice person at every rally who ever got pregnant through stupid sex,” Did you notice how the sex wasn’t worth having an abortion over? No? I did. Good for you if your sex was so great that it was worth having an abortion over. Mine wasn’t. Maybe you could mention this at the next rally. In case I’m not the only girl in the history of America who ever got pregnant through stupid voluntary sex.”
I needed someone to look me in the eye and say “don’t have stupid sex” before I had it.
Who else will do that today but other women? Men dig stupid sex, like every other category of sex. They have no choice to make afterwards.
Women are the only ones who can change this ancient paradigm where we suffer no matter what we do. It’s time.
Avoiding making bad decisions is a basic feature of any life. Women want to have sex as much as men do. Making those connections to fill those desires is full of the potential of all kinds of problems depending on how you want to go about it. You should have some sort of reliable plan in place long before you decide to engage in sex. If you don't, that is the only kind of stupid sex, men and women alike.
We’re not talking enough about this lack of a plan before diving into the sex that we all enjoy.
Is a man’s lack of a plan at all related to how he’ll never need an abortion? Even a little? The woman will have it for him, as she’s always done, so maybe he needs less of a plan? I’m just asking.
If men needed abortions, might it be logical to think that there’d be more engagement by men in trying to create pregnancy-free outcomes for their own bodies?
Good point. Speaking as a man, when the relationship is gravitating towards sex, I have made it a point to ask about birth control and what she wants to do if she gets pregnant accidentally. If no birth control is in play, then there will be no sex. If there is the slightest possibility that she would keep the pregnancy if she got pregnant accidentally, then there will be no sex.
I made a decision very early in my life, in early adolescence, that I would not raise a family. Family and other social circumstances did not suggest there was a place for my children at least, and any children at all if you were completely honest. I wanted to get a vasectomy as soon as I heard what one was. I was never able to get one when it mattered and if I had, I think I would have been a little freer sexually.
I have seen some really bad behavior on the part of men. I was stunned to learn that an acquaintance had made a friend pregnant and not only did he insist that she have it, he also insisted that he would have nothing to do with it. He was very, very serious. So having a plan doesn't necessarily mean a good plan. Sexual partners should share plans before they have sex, and if you don't think you can trust the partner with their plan, no sex. When both partners have a bad plan that they agree upon, this is a disaster and certainly entire populations and even civilizations are the result of such corrupting conspiracies.
Interestingly enough, telling women to hate sex may have occurred in antiquity when patriarchal structures began developing.
Society was matriarchal before Judaism/Christianity/Islam based on archeological evidence.
Introducing a male God when these Abrahamic religions first formed helped eliminate women’s preexisting rights for sexual freedom, inheritances and governing power.
Check out a fascinating, well-researched book called ‘When God Was a Woman.’ There is an abundance of archeological evidence of ancient Goddess worship by both women and men. The ancient power grab by men from women at the start of changing the eternal, life-giving deity from female (which was logical since women gave birth) to male makes so much sense.
Men wanted more societal power. They wanted inheritance rights. They wanted to ensure their children were theirs. Their power grab included ensuring women had sex with husbands only, contrary to sexual celebrations and rituals and daily life that had been occurring for thousands of years. Once they understood that sex caused pregnancy, men get involved in trying to control women’s behavior.
The Old Testament enshrined that women were subordinate. Men just made it up out of thin air to take charge of women. They had to create a brand new male God and sell him through fear. He was the basis of their new male-empowered reality. Women didn’t give in easily. Nor did men. Thus all the slaughter in the Old Testament.
‘When God was a Woman.’ It’s fascinating.
Also, nothing I’ve said is intended to be sarcastic. Just today’s complex reality for women.
I’m not advocating stupid sex. The forced birthers are the same people who are against sex education in schools, or anywhere else, for that matter. It’s not that you are wrong about advocating better education about sex for both men and women, and advocacy for women.
It’s just that the forced birth side uses a version of this argument—“just keep your legs closed”—to justify their opposition to abortion and place the locus of responsibility, and blame—basically slut-shame—women and only women. We’re just trying not to feed into their argument.
I’ve been living through this debate since I first became aware of the need for abortion rights in 1980 when I needed one. My relatives are Evangelicals. I’m intimately, personally hyper aware of their beliefs and talking points. My brother thinks I’ll burn in hell. I can’t control others’ beliefs or talking points.
I don’t hate sex. I don’t slut shame. (If I did, it wouldn’t be women, based on my own experience having grown up before MeToo.)
All this said, it’s a problem imo if a pro-choice woman points out the following and takes flack for it, as though she’s arguing for the other side: it’s *always* women who are stuck having to have the abortions; and abortions are not fun if you’re stuck needing one. Compared with, say, going on a fun road trip to the beach. That’s my idea of actual fun.
I hate it when women suffer if it can be avoided. It’s that simple. I’ve seen 60+ years of suffering and struggle—and somehow, pointing these things out automatically triggers a reaction in some people that I’m blaming women. Why? Because we’re all so accustomed from antiquity to judge and blame women for almost everything including but not limited to eating a fictitious apple in an imaginary garden which caused man’s downfall.
I’m pointing out how powerful women are if they claim their power. I just would suggest they claim it all the time. This is the first era where women can without being ostracized, kicked into the street or burned at the stake.
I’m really sorry this was your experience, truly. I don’t really think I have ever heard anyone say “was the sex worth the abortion” before. I also know that it’s not JUST poor, uneducated women of color who have abortions. The rate of unintended pregnancies that result in abortion are higher for white women at higher income levels. In other words - poor, undereducated women end up continuing unintended pregnancies more often, mainly because of lack of access, lack of money for the abortion. That leads to less/no prenatal care, more pregnancy complications, higher rates of mortality and morbidity. About 60% + women who have abortions are either married or in relationships. So basically educated women with money have more control over when they will have children, which generally leads to better outcomes for their families.
I think you might be right about discussing better attitudes over sex, but dead wrong about thinking “actual” choice is only before sex. It might be trite but consent to sex is NOT consent to pregnancy. Intoxicated sex also isn’t consent. I’m not sure if I would say I “believe” in abortion, I just don’t think an embryo/early fetus is morally worth more than what I want for my own body and life. I think it might be natural to regret the circumstances that led you to seek an abortion, but I don’t know that screaming at pro-choice women is the best way to help others.
Maybe other people here are better at answering this. But I don’t know why you are so angry at women who don’t want to shame or judge you over this.
That was my exact mindset. Exact, word for word. I can have sex this one time, the first time, and as long as I don’t consent to being pregnant, I won’t get pregnant. As I viewed the positive test in my dorm room, I reminded my body that it was acting without my consent. Yet days passed, nothing changed and the clock kept ticking. Didn’t change a single thing.
My choice at that point was to end the pregnancy, end my life which, granted, was my own extreme state of mind for multiple familial reasons, or let the pregnancy continue. All acutely bad choices.
My actual point of power to avoid being required to choose from one of these was before sex. 100%. Not after. I like more choices than what I had right there in the dorm room.
Claiming my power before sex would’ve kept me out of the ‘just another nameless, faceless abortion statistic’ category that year. Claiming my power, I’ve discovered over and over as I’ve become older, is central to the kind of life I lead. Central to my happiness to chart my own destiny. It’s everything.
If I sound like I’m screaming, that’s another issue. I’m glad you pointed out. Thank you. I guess I wanted to scream at the universe back then, why didn’t anyone care to help me claim my power? Whose life was it anyway? I didn’t know how much power I had. I thought I had none.
It’s a real problem imo when anyone feels powerless. I know how it feels. It’s no way to live.
I think we all want women to have more power and more choices. There's a health care emergency in this country right now, and that's what people are focused on. This substack used to be called All in Her Head, before Dobbs, when Jessica still had time to write about anything else besides the crisis. I think we all miss that time. You can and should argue for claiming power, but there is SO so much in this world that works against that for women, and that's what we all want to change. I think we want to avoid any contradiction between the two messages, because it will be exploited by those who want women powerless. If it was easy, we wouldn't be in this situation.
‘You can and should argue for claiming power, but there is SO so much in this world that works against that for women, and that's what we all want to change. I think we want to avoid any contradiction between the two messages.’
Because there’s so much working against women claiming their power, we best not suggest that women try to claim their power even more, even though that’s the exact thing we all want to change? Lack of empowerment in women?
Further, if it were easy (we could talk about all types of empowerment, though we wouldn’t need to since) we wouldn’t be in this situation.
But it’s hard, so best we not suggest women try to claim their own power. For the very reason that it’s hard.
What?? Why??
Is the most useful goal *for a woman* to have an abortion, or to not need one?
If you had a choice—there’s that word—would you choose for yourself to experience an abortion or to not need one?
If you were required—or empowered—to pick one before you have sex that impregnates you.
Maybe we need more dialog on the most useful ways—plural—to help women now that things are harder than they were.
To Kathy Ayers, The fact that you needed an abortion when you were young & felt alone & scared was obviously a trauma that you’ve never fully recovered from, but your anger & blame is very misplaced.
You mentioned a religious background.
I think that rather than harangue the pro choice activists for not preaching abstinence, which is, in fact, what you are advocating; you should turn your anger about not being “empowered” to say no to random sex toward your own parents, religious community, school, etc
Why do you suppose your youthful self imagined that “just one time, nothing will happen?” I’m going to guess it’s because you had close to zero sex education, & probably very minimal education about menstruation, the parts of the cycle when you would be most likely to become pregnant, & that
“even one sexual encounter without a condom” could cause pregnancy.
That was the empowering information that you needed as soon as your first period occurred.
Here you are fussing at pro choice people for not advising young girls & women to avoid casual or drunken sex, but didn’t your Mother & your church tell you not to have sex until you were married? I’m betting that’s about all the sex education you ever got, was just say no, because that’s what all Christian religions teach.
So basically you were “warned” & probably raised with the impression that “only bad, slutty girls did that before they got married. Good Christian girls save themselves for their future husbands.” Otherwise, why did you feel your only choices were abortion or suicide? Was it easier to think of just dying rather than telling your parents what you had done? And why was that a better escape?
Because your parents, your church community, your friends would shame you & your church would damn you to burn in hell for your “sin?”
Your anger would be so much more productive focused toward religion & the anti abortion (forced birth) people who are dead set against sex education in school. They are against it because they believe it will encourage as you put it “dumb sex” when in fact, the opposite is true. Real, in depth, factual sex education empowers young girls. It arms them with knowledge of how their bodies work & what the risks of unprotected sex are. This applies to boys also.
And yes, many of the strongly pro forced birth people DO want more unintended pregnancies. Justice Coney-Barret said so in her concurring opinion when they issued the Dobbs decision. She said we needed a greater supply of adoptable babies!!
I’m pretty certain she didn’t mean black & brown babies either. Or, if she & those like her are okay with more
BIPOC babies being born, it’s only so that they can take those babies & adopt them into “good Christian homes” where they can be indoctrinated into believing in a vengeful god that they are terrified of sinning against because he will punish them & they’ll go to hell & Mommy & Daddy will be ashamed of them or maybe even hate them & kick them out of their home.
I’m truly sorry that you had such an awful experience back then, but why don’t we all work together to make sure that all young people are educated about their choices? Let’s put the blame for this mess where it really belongs; on the extreme religious, puritanical, patriarchal society that we currently live in?
Some of what you say about the religious influence in my life, and in general, is true. Clearly I lacked birth control info that would’ve changed my life. Clearly every young person needs the full gamut of education and info. No one is arguing that on the pro choice side.
It’s also crystal clear in my mind that we would do young women the greatest service by talking about the sex also. Every young girl is free to have sex with the nicest guy to the most awful dude alive if she feels like it. No one is arguing that. Apparently most women don’t think about whether the sex that got them pregnant was worth an abortion. Maybe most young girls have outstanding, fulfilling, awesome, satisfying sex every time, so if one instance gets them pregnant, they may think it’s unfortunate but they wouldn’t change a thing. The sex was well worth it. I guess I’m in the minority. The pressures sex that got me pregnant wasn’t worth it. Seems lots of people today also equate someone saying, the specific impregnating sex wasn’t worth it, to believing all sex is bad, girls should abstain, hell is real, etc. None of which I believed then or now.
Empowerment means the power to say no when you don’t want sex. Why is that a sin on the pro-choice side? Is every girl required to have sex before she feels like it to prove she’s sex-positive? To whom must she prove this? Other women? Why?
Men terrorize women in all sorts of ways. It's not like feminism can just declare victory and go home even if we somehow were able to fully protect reproductive rights and health care for all time. But you need those no matter what. I don't see that there's a conflict between that and what you're saying. It'd sort of be like ignoring property insurance and saying that climate change is the real problem and if we didn't have that we wouldn't have all these disasters. That can be true and you still need property insurance.
Multiple interwoven truths can be true at the same time for human beings.
Truth: Abortion must be legal. Incredulously, we now have to exert extreme effort and diligence to reclaim a right that should never have been lost in these acutely dysfunctional times.
Truth: Women and girls must be aware that it’s far preferable for them to *try hard* to avoid needing one—and it will always be up to them to have one; never the guy they have sex with—because abortion doesn’t carry the same pleasantness as, for example, walking on a cool beach in August.
I have no interest in blaming anyone for why they had an unplanned pregnancy.
Would it be awesome if people used 2-3x protection? Sure.
So if antiabortions want to airlift and drop free contraception from airplanes, stock it for free in University bathrooms, and teach it early in schools I will be all there with them.
But it’s pretty clear they absolutely don’t want to prevent unplanned pregnancies. They want more unplanned pregnancies.
Huh? Did you see the word blame anywhere? I typed the words and I didn’t use it, so point out where it appeared on your phone please.
Anti-abortionists want more unplanned pregnancies, is your response to how I want way fewer? I don’t care what they want. I care about ending younger, less wealthy, less educated women’s suffering through finding out they’re pregnant when they do not wish to be. I care about education and empowerment.
I don’t even blame *myself* for my idiot sex. Nor the boy. We were kids. He was a boy being a boy. I was a shy girl too scared to say no. I could’ve made the abortion appointment when I was in kindergarten. It was inevitable. Bummer but hey, it happens, right? The main thing is that abortion was accessible. Whatever lead up to it is blah, blah, blah.
I get that people don’t think abortion causes suffering *****for the young woman.*******. That an unwanted pregnancy may have a problematic or inconvenient aspect to it, but by God, abortion is the girl’s right.
Yep. It is. But abortion isn’t the actual story. Abortion is the last word on the last page. The first 300 pages are the real story. Every woman or girl who has ever had voluntary sex that lead to an abortion has a story that matters. Every one of those stories matters. All we focus on is abortion, pro or con, as though we couldn’t care less about understanding women’s stories. This doesn’t help a young, poor Black girl in Mississippi avoid getting pregnant to save herself even more suffering. Or any other woman.
You’re 100% correct that you didn’t say we should blame women anywhere. But I did react to the phrase “stupid sex”.
I am still processing all the things you wrote and your own experience. And I’m still processing what you said and struggling with how to make your advice actionable.
I really like the car metaphor for abortion where car accidents represent unwanted pregnancy. I use it here.
🚗 Lots of people drive cars. *No one* intends to get into accidents. We have risk mitigation strategies to reduce accidents (road design, inspections) and also reduce harm when accidents happen (seatbelts, airbags, crumple zones). And medical and insurance services to respond to harm.
Then… I think what you’re asking for is something like a drunk driving awareness campaign! 💡
I think where I struggle with that proposal is that I have antiabortion groups systematically trying to undo *every other component* that makes “driving” safe. They are eliminating risk mitigation strategies (birth control, education) and they are maximizing harm (laws, insurance, deliberate confusion). They are writing laws to make it so children can “drive” (teen pregnancy, child marriage). They are banning people from talking about safe driving or what happens when you get in an accident. They are rerouting funding malicious driving education programs and fake hospitals (CPCs). They don’t care about safety or accidents because they think about driving in a totally different way. In their mind, there is a right way to drive and you should follow it, or else.
If all of *that* ⬆️ wasn’t happening, I think your proposal — as I understand it — might make more sense to me because it would be adding to, not a proposal in the face of everything being ripped away hurtling us into the dark ages.
I think that messaging campaign would struggle in 2024 to not sound like a part of the anti campaign. Sounding like ALL the old dudes 👴👴 who blame women for getting pregnant and say something gross like they should have “kept their legs closed” while literally voting to prevent doctors from saving women’s organs in the ER.
And I think most sex — even the best sex — is a little stupid. I think people are programmed that way! We humans are somewhere between chimps and bonobos and our lack of risk aversion is how we became the dominant species. If you could send 100 people right now to Mars where they would 💯die, we would fill the rocket ship.
I just don’t know how to message “do it — but not like this” without causing collateral damage to those who do get abortions. 🦄 🌞 I believe every abortion is a good abortion because it’s a person taking care of their health. 🌈 ❤️
I’m not going to go around telling women to not have sex with men and avoid stupid sex. I am not positioned to do that as a dude. I would much prefer to focus my efforts on shoring up all the “driving safety” that antis are working 24/7 to destroy. And those efforts help those whose birth control failed (eg my friend with a vasectomy), and those who didn’t get a choice 😔 , and those who wanted kids but their fetus didn’t take right (my sister), and those needs a D&C post birth (my mother), and those miscarrying (my spouse), and those who need those medications for other reasons (my friend), and those who didn’t know better because they were denied resources, etc.
I think we’re better positioned to fight the antiabortion movement. It’s a simple message: The government should stay out of your bedroom and out of your doctors office. People get final say about what happens to their bodies. Consent.
Almost every bit of this I agree with including the driving analogy. But because anti-choice fanatics are determined to strip away choice, we therefore must not mention to girls (even in a whisper?), “just do yourself a favor and try hard to avoid unwanted pregnancy because you’ll be glad you did”? That’s crossing a bright yellow line into shark infested waters?
Does that make any real sense to you?
Also I’m intensely curious about these honest yet paradigm-forming sentences:
“I’m not going to go around telling women to not have sec with men and avoid stupid sex. I am not positioned to do that as a dude.”
This right here is one of the major foundational problems in society imo regarding sex, unwanted pregnancies and abortion. Men never talk about it so your honesty is refreshing.
Men want stupid sex to continue even if it causes pain for women. They care more about unfettered access to their own sexual pleasures than any pain they may bring to a woman by impregnating her which may lead to the need for an abortion which she may or may not have access to today.
It’s fantastic saying this piece of truth about men out loud, isn’t it? It’s freeing.
I guess that also is where I am stuck with this conversation.
I will talk to *my children* about sex and pregnancy. We will talk about myths and readiness. I will likely show them this old NYT graphic about birth control efficacy https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/14/sunday-review/unplanned-pregnancies.html and talk about the importance of double or triple protection. And I will try to bust all the sex negative things they learn in school to frighten them into abstinence.
Is the forum you want is just better sex ed in schools? 🤔
I think we have the potential to offer better sex ed than at any point in human history. Check out the Universal Unitarian sex ed program. Dr Doe on YouTube. “Come as you are” by Emily Nagaoski. Amazing stuff! ‼️ But to provide *that level of education* means running against and defeating antiabortionists at the school boards across America and defending our rights.
And.. Regarding men’s selfishness… well I think girls are better taught to think of the community and consequences of their actions but I think most people — of all genders — are so in their own heads, their own pain, and their own pleasure especially when they’re young and hormones hit hardest have a hard time thinking about others and consequences. 🤷♂️
I have no way to agree with or dispute your thoughts about hormones raging equally between both sexes.
Women pay a bigger price if a pregnancy occurs. That’s beyond dispute. How much men care about the price women pay isn’t something I can measure, though based on years of watching men in action, I’d suggest they care far more about other things.
Forum? I don’t know for certain though social media is everyone’s forum of choice today. I’ve only started speaking out. I can’t stand what’s happening. We need to widen the pro/anti-choice debate much wider.
I appreciate your thoughtfulness.
One last question: Would men be more careful with sex if they were the ones who risked their own personal pregnancy?
Thank you for taking the time to write this. I especially love the paragraph pointing out the irrationality of sex, the comparison to other primates, and yes going to Mars! You've captured something important about life and being human that is usually left out when debates become clinical.
Yeah, about that national clearinghouse website . . .
You’d think they’d get the idea eventually that we’re just going to enter a bunch of bogus information and pollute their database with as much garbage data they have to chase down and verify as humanly possible. But if they don’t, well, my patience is infinite. How about yours? A little creative monkey-wrenching is good for the soul.
Try not to use obviously false info like Haywood Jablome that makes it easy to filter out the crap. Make them work for it.
I love this. I can't get pregnant and therefore will not need an abortion, but if this comes to pass, I will enter my information too, just for funsies!
Sharing women’s experiences is a really powerful tool. We have to educate people on the multitude of ways abortion bans harm women (and men). I think we should also be highlighting the stories the predate Roe, particularly all the research on Catholic hospitals, and linking it to what is happening in ban states. We all know this is about imposing one particular religious conception of life on all women, but I keep thinking specifically about how conservatives are trying to impose a religious “standard of care” in every hospital in the nation - a standard of care that isn’t limited to elective abortions but goes to women’s ability to receive treatment when pregnancy goes wrong. We know how harmful this is to women - the research on Catholic hospitals and the testimonies of doctors going back decades (in peer reviewed articles) lays out stories identical to what women are experiencing in secular, red state hospitals. I feel like the media/public has this sense that it will take time to really see the damage flow from these bans. And while that’s true in some respects (the long term consequences will be numerous and varied), we also can look to Catholic care and know exactly what sort of harms are occurring, even when it doesn’t make it into the local news.
Thank you for the link. I was just about to ask if you had any suggestions where to find this information. I have been listening to a book called “When Abortion was a Crime”. It gave me a better understanding of how intrusive enforcing abortion bans were.
I will add the aim is to destroy America, to the benefit of autocrats AND right wing billionaires around the world. Abortion ban and chaos are an integral part of it. Inevitably, if trump wins, there will be chaos everywhere, protests and such, a perfect environment for the autocrats to cow the populace further, see Belarus and other countries recently destroyed to the benefit of a few. In America, I would guess we are already there about 40% of the way with every institution having been corrupted in the last 8 years but before too by the vast right wing conspiracy that primed a certain section of the society for trump.
Tweet seen:
Ruth Ben-Ghiat
@ruthbenghiat
Folks, he is not going to leave office, ever. Know this before you decide not to vote for Biden. It will be worse than you can imagine and a national security disaster. The aim is to destroy America, to the benefit of autocrats around the world.
Look at Poland, they just got rid of an anti-abortion right-wing nutjob, and they are now starting to address the damage done.
While I absolutely believe trump would sign a national abortion ban, he doesn’t have to. He can appoint an acting fda head who will rescind mifepristone approval & an acting ag who will enforce the comstock act. (Remember how he went on about much he loved acting positions over senate hearings for placements?) Back door bans as Jessica said.
I think electing Democrats in 2024 is way too important to feel any reservations about them/us using the issue to get out the vote. In 1992 NARAL opposed (D-PA) Sen Harris Wofford because he was for parental consent. We canargue about whether or not he was right to support the policy, but there's no argument that his loss to Rick Santorum was good for women. (I know this bc my husband worked from Wofford, who also wrote speeches for MLK and the Kennedys and sponsored the bill that brought us Americorp.) Dems have to get to 51% in every swing state, period. If you feel queasy about the strategy of using abortion when it's new, I get it. But also please -everyone - voting inNovember for Dems is easential.
I was wrong- it wasn't Parentla consent. Wofford had run on health care reform and on a national level was pro choce on a national level but wasn't willing to demand that every plan under health reform include coverage for abortion- so catholic health plans could not cover ir. M
David can't remember the exact details - but the point is Wofford lost to Santorum and NARAL's lack of enthusiasm for Wofford in PA did have an impact on the election and he lost. So much more is on the line now.
Project 2025 calls for transforming the CDC into an abortion tracking unit nationwide. Really a pregnancy tracking unit, because given everything they listed that they want to track, they'd basically be tracking every pregnancy outcome. These recommendations were included in the Health and Human Services section of P2025, written by Roger Severino, who's about as Christo-fascist as they come. I wrote about this more than a month ago.
https://project2025istheocracy.substack.com/p/project-2025-how-christian-nationalist?utm_source=publication-search
This is one of many reasons why understanding what's in Project 2025 is so important. Christo-fascist Republicans like Katie Britt and Marco Rubio are using this document and its secret tactical companion to implement laws right now, today. They have laid out very clearly and plainly what they plan to do. AND THEY ARE SYSTEMATICALLY DOING IT OR ATTEMPTING TO DO IT. None of this should be a surprise.
Katie Britt - aka Kitchen Barbie - who gave the Republican response to Biden’s SOTU introduced the bill to create the federal database of pregnant women.
Is anyone surprised?
I listened to your terrific podcast with Chris Hayes (Why is this Happening?) and am recommending it to everyone. One thing you alluded to, and often allude to in AED, is the domino effect of abortion bans. If women, students, and people generally, as well as doctors, medical residents, and medical students are going to avoid living with states in bans, that is like the states committing slow-motion suicide. Maternity wards will close for lack of doctors, often leading to hospital insolvency or closure, not to mention maternal care deserts. Companies will have more difficulty recruiting workers, who don’t want to be pregnant in a dangerous environment, resulting in higher pay offers which lead ultimately to increased prices, which further alienate potential residents.
With fewer students moving to a state to study medicine or even other disciplines, colleges and universities will either have to reduce their offerings, resulting in fewer jobs and an exodus of professors from the state, or become subsidized by tax dollars which are then unavailable for other state priorities. If medical students won’t apply for residencies in states with bans, the standard of care across the entire spectrum of care will go down—hospitals rely on residents for manpower to provide care. When these red states lose population, the will lose congressional and electoral college representation. This is a downward spiral with many other effects I haven’t mentioned or even thought of that is difficult, if not impossible, to reverse. Why is there not more discussion of this in the press?
The secular hospitals would close, then religious groups then buy those hospitals, and starve the women of their right to standard of care. We see that already.
We need to push Congress to put a stop to this Catholic Hospital monopoly using the anti trust laws
Jessica, I can tell you that more than one Idaho physician is pissed at Raul Labrador.
Where’s the dialog about how women need to protect themselves and help each other avoid an unwanted pregnancy from, for example, a one night stand; a fling with a jerk; a hook up while intoxicated. *Any* voluntary sex causing unwanted pregnancy. Why? Because that’s where actual choice exists. Before it happens. Cause and effect matters. Of course abortion has to become and stay legal everywhere, but women should pivot their thinking about sex now. Today. In red states, especially.
It’s as though discussion about the sex itself is heretical and gets you sent to hell—by the pro-choice side, that is. I don’t call this serving the women most likely to have abortions: young, poor, undereducated and women of color. If women cared deeply about other women, we’d talk about the definition of crappy, unacceptable sex: the kind that makes you pregnant when you don’t want to be. So stop having risky sex. Stop making excuses for other women’s suffering as though unwanted pregnancies are women’s lot in life. Poor us. No such thing as a powerful poor uneducated minority woman. We need to look the other way while she gets pregnant then pull out our self-righteous guns to keep her limited options open—so very limited—once she’s pregnant.
There is a fundamental breakdown in this entire sexual thought process. A short-circuit exists on a large scale.
I’m not talking about rape. This is about voluntary sex that causes unwanted pregnancies and all the ways other women rationalize it rather than working to create a new, better, more powerful paradigm of empowered sexuality when there’s actual choice. Before a pregnancy. Rather than after a pregnancy when a hell of a lot of reactionary activity has to happen as fast as possible while the clock screams off every tick.
If one woman—one!—had cared enough about me to help keep me unpregnant in the mostly male engineering school I went to, so I could’ve avoided the choice between abortion and, yep, suicide, I’d have a different life today. I was too young, naive and religious to know what I didn’t know. All I knew is that a bunch of women believed in abortion. Okay, then how bad could it be? If it was bad, they’d be talking about it. At least a little, right? Hello? Anybody out there?
Afterwards, I wanted to scream to every pro-choice person at every rally who ever got pregnant through stupid sex,” Did you notice how the sex wasn’t worth having an abortion over? No? I did. Good for you if your sex was so great that it was worth having an abortion over. Mine wasn’t. Maybe you could mention this at the next rally. In case I’m not the only girl in the history of America who ever got pregnant through stupid voluntary sex.”
I needed someone to look me in the eye and say “don’t have stupid sex” before I had it.
Who else will do that today but other women? Men dig stupid sex, like every other category of sex. They have no choice to make afterwards.
Women are the only ones who can change this ancient paradigm where we suffer no matter what we do. It’s time.
Avoiding making bad decisions is a basic feature of any life. Women want to have sex as much as men do. Making those connections to fill those desires is full of the potential of all kinds of problems depending on how you want to go about it. You should have some sort of reliable plan in place long before you decide to engage in sex. If you don't, that is the only kind of stupid sex, men and women alike.
Yes. This. Have a plan.
We’re not talking enough about this lack of a plan before diving into the sex that we all enjoy.
Is a man’s lack of a plan at all related to how he’ll never need an abortion? Even a little? The woman will have it for him, as she’s always done, so maybe he needs less of a plan? I’m just asking.
If men needed abortions, might it be logical to think that there’d be more engagement by men in trying to create pregnancy-free outcomes for their own bodies?
From a man’s perspective, what do you think?
Good point. Speaking as a man, when the relationship is gravitating towards sex, I have made it a point to ask about birth control and what she wants to do if she gets pregnant accidentally. If no birth control is in play, then there will be no sex. If there is the slightest possibility that she would keep the pregnancy if she got pregnant accidentally, then there will be no sex.
I made a decision very early in my life, in early adolescence, that I would not raise a family. Family and other social circumstances did not suggest there was a place for my children at least, and any children at all if you were completely honest. I wanted to get a vasectomy as soon as I heard what one was. I was never able to get one when it mattered and if I had, I think I would have been a little freer sexually.
I have seen some really bad behavior on the part of men. I was stunned to learn that an acquaintance had made a friend pregnant and not only did he insist that she have it, he also insisted that he would have nothing to do with it. He was very, very serious. So having a plan doesn't necessarily mean a good plan. Sexual partners should share plans before they have sex, and if you don't think you can trust the partner with their plan, no sex. When both partners have a bad plan that they agree upon, this is a disaster and certainly entire populations and even civilizations are the result of such corrupting conspiracies.
Telling woman there's something wrong with them if they enjoy sex is not the answer. Religious indoctrination can warp one's perception about sex.
That’s for certain.
Thank God no one on the pro-choice side (that I’m aware of, at least) has ever, or will ever, tell that to women today.
Did someone in a church somewhere say that to you? Easy to imagine it being spoken. To women only.
I must've misread your sarcasm b/c that's what I thought you were saying.
Not in any way.
Interestingly enough, telling women to hate sex may have occurred in antiquity when patriarchal structures began developing.
Society was matriarchal before Judaism/Christianity/Islam based on archeological evidence.
Introducing a male God when these Abrahamic religions first formed helped eliminate women’s preexisting rights for sexual freedom, inheritances and governing power.
Check out a fascinating, well-researched book called ‘When God Was a Woman.’ There is an abundance of archeological evidence of ancient Goddess worship by both women and men. The ancient power grab by men from women at the start of changing the eternal, life-giving deity from female (which was logical since women gave birth) to male makes so much sense.
Men wanted more societal power. They wanted inheritance rights. They wanted to ensure their children were theirs. Their power grab included ensuring women had sex with husbands only, contrary to sexual celebrations and rituals and daily life that had been occurring for thousands of years. Once they understood that sex caused pregnancy, men get involved in trying to control women’s behavior.
The Old Testament enshrined that women were subordinate. Men just made it up out of thin air to take charge of women. They had to create a brand new male God and sell him through fear. He was the basis of their new male-empowered reality. Women didn’t give in easily. Nor did men. Thus all the slaughter in the Old Testament.
‘When God was a Woman.’ It’s fascinating.
Also, nothing I’ve said is intended to be sarcastic. Just today’s complex reality for women.
I appreciate your thoughts.
Thanks for chatting.
I’m not advocating stupid sex. The forced birthers are the same people who are against sex education in schools, or anywhere else, for that matter. It’s not that you are wrong about advocating better education about sex for both men and women, and advocacy for women.
It’s just that the forced birth side uses a version of this argument—“just keep your legs closed”—to justify their opposition to abortion and place the locus of responsibility, and blame—basically slut-shame—women and only women. We’re just trying not to feed into their argument.
I understand and appreciate that.
I’ve been living through this debate since I first became aware of the need for abortion rights in 1980 when I needed one. My relatives are Evangelicals. I’m intimately, personally hyper aware of their beliefs and talking points. My brother thinks I’ll burn in hell. I can’t control others’ beliefs or talking points.
I don’t hate sex. I don’t slut shame. (If I did, it wouldn’t be women, based on my own experience having grown up before MeToo.)
All this said, it’s a problem imo if a pro-choice woman points out the following and takes flack for it, as though she’s arguing for the other side: it’s *always* women who are stuck having to have the abortions; and abortions are not fun if you’re stuck needing one. Compared with, say, going on a fun road trip to the beach. That’s my idea of actual fun.
I hate it when women suffer if it can be avoided. It’s that simple. I’ve seen 60+ years of suffering and struggle—and somehow, pointing these things out automatically triggers a reaction in some people that I’m blaming women. Why? Because we’re all so accustomed from antiquity to judge and blame women for almost everything including but not limited to eating a fictitious apple in an imaginary garden which caused man’s downfall.
I’m pointing out how powerful women are if they claim their power. I just would suggest they claim it all the time. This is the first era where women can without being ostracized, kicked into the street or burned at the stake.
Don’t have stupid sex.
Does that make the anger you feel now any better?
I’m really sorry this was your experience, truly. I don’t really think I have ever heard anyone say “was the sex worth the abortion” before. I also know that it’s not JUST poor, uneducated women of color who have abortions. The rate of unintended pregnancies that result in abortion are higher for white women at higher income levels. In other words - poor, undereducated women end up continuing unintended pregnancies more often, mainly because of lack of access, lack of money for the abortion. That leads to less/no prenatal care, more pregnancy complications, higher rates of mortality and morbidity. About 60% + women who have abortions are either married or in relationships. So basically educated women with money have more control over when they will have children, which generally leads to better outcomes for their families.
I think you might be right about discussing better attitudes over sex, but dead wrong about thinking “actual” choice is only before sex. It might be trite but consent to sex is NOT consent to pregnancy. Intoxicated sex also isn’t consent. I’m not sure if I would say I “believe” in abortion, I just don’t think an embryo/early fetus is morally worth more than what I want for my own body and life. I think it might be natural to regret the circumstances that led you to seek an abortion, but I don’t know that screaming at pro-choice women is the best way to help others.
Maybe other people here are better at answering this. But I don’t know why you are so angry at women who don’t want to shame or judge you over this.
I appreciate your words.
‘Consent to sex is not consent to pregnancy.’
That was my exact mindset. Exact, word for word. I can have sex this one time, the first time, and as long as I don’t consent to being pregnant, I won’t get pregnant. As I viewed the positive test in my dorm room, I reminded my body that it was acting without my consent. Yet days passed, nothing changed and the clock kept ticking. Didn’t change a single thing.
My choice at that point was to end the pregnancy, end my life which, granted, was my own extreme state of mind for multiple familial reasons, or let the pregnancy continue. All acutely bad choices.
My actual point of power to avoid being required to choose from one of these was before sex. 100%. Not after. I like more choices than what I had right there in the dorm room.
Claiming my power before sex would’ve kept me out of the ‘just another nameless, faceless abortion statistic’ category that year. Claiming my power, I’ve discovered over and over as I’ve become older, is central to the kind of life I lead. Central to my happiness to chart my own destiny. It’s everything.
If I sound like I’m screaming, that’s another issue. I’m glad you pointed out. Thank you. I guess I wanted to scream at the universe back then, why didn’t anyone care to help me claim my power? Whose life was it anyway? I didn’t know how much power I had. I thought I had none.
It’s a real problem imo when anyone feels powerless. I know how it feels. It’s no way to live.
I appreciate this dialog.
I think we all want women to have more power and more choices. There's a health care emergency in this country right now, and that's what people are focused on. This substack used to be called All in Her Head, before Dobbs, when Jessica still had time to write about anything else besides the crisis. I think we all miss that time. You can and should argue for claiming power, but there is SO so much in this world that works against that for women, and that's what we all want to change. I think we want to avoid any contradiction between the two messages, because it will be exploited by those who want women powerless. If it was easy, we wouldn't be in this situation.
Oh my, interesting juxtaposition here:
‘You can and should argue for claiming power, but there is SO so much in this world that works against that for women, and that's what we all want to change. I think we want to avoid any contradiction between the two messages.’
Because there’s so much working against women claiming their power, we best not suggest that women try to claim their power even more, even though that’s the exact thing we all want to change? Lack of empowerment in women?
Further, if it were easy (we could talk about all types of empowerment, though we wouldn’t need to since) we wouldn’t be in this situation.
But it’s hard, so best we not suggest women try to claim their own power. For the very reason that it’s hard.
What?? Why??
Is the most useful goal *for a woman* to have an abortion, or to not need one?
If you had a choice—there’s that word—would you choose for yourself to experience an abortion or to not need one?
If you were required—or empowered—to pick one before you have sex that impregnates you.
Maybe we need more dialog on the most useful ways—plural—to help women now that things are harder than they were.
To Kathy Ayers, The fact that you needed an abortion when you were young & felt alone & scared was obviously a trauma that you’ve never fully recovered from, but your anger & blame is very misplaced.
You mentioned a religious background.
I think that rather than harangue the pro choice activists for not preaching abstinence, which is, in fact, what you are advocating; you should turn your anger about not being “empowered” to say no to random sex toward your own parents, religious community, school, etc
Why do you suppose your youthful self imagined that “just one time, nothing will happen?” I’m going to guess it’s because you had close to zero sex education, & probably very minimal education about menstruation, the parts of the cycle when you would be most likely to become pregnant, & that
“even one sexual encounter without a condom” could cause pregnancy.
That was the empowering information that you needed as soon as your first period occurred.
Here you are fussing at pro choice people for not advising young girls & women to avoid casual or drunken sex, but didn’t your Mother & your church tell you not to have sex until you were married? I’m betting that’s about all the sex education you ever got, was just say no, because that’s what all Christian religions teach.
So basically you were “warned” & probably raised with the impression that “only bad, slutty girls did that before they got married. Good Christian girls save themselves for their future husbands.” Otherwise, why did you feel your only choices were abortion or suicide? Was it easier to think of just dying rather than telling your parents what you had done? And why was that a better escape?
Because your parents, your church community, your friends would shame you & your church would damn you to burn in hell for your “sin?”
Your anger would be so much more productive focused toward religion & the anti abortion (forced birth) people who are dead set against sex education in school. They are against it because they believe it will encourage as you put it “dumb sex” when in fact, the opposite is true. Real, in depth, factual sex education empowers young girls. It arms them with knowledge of how their bodies work & what the risks of unprotected sex are. This applies to boys also.
And yes, many of the strongly pro forced birth people DO want more unintended pregnancies. Justice Coney-Barret said so in her concurring opinion when they issued the Dobbs decision. She said we needed a greater supply of adoptable babies!!
I’m pretty certain she didn’t mean black & brown babies either. Or, if she & those like her are okay with more
BIPOC babies being born, it’s only so that they can take those babies & adopt them into “good Christian homes” where they can be indoctrinated into believing in a vengeful god that they are terrified of sinning against because he will punish them & they’ll go to hell & Mommy & Daddy will be ashamed of them or maybe even hate them & kick them out of their home.
I’m truly sorry that you had such an awful experience back then, but why don’t we all work together to make sure that all young people are educated about their choices? Let’s put the blame for this mess where it really belongs; on the extreme religious, puritanical, patriarchal society that we currently live in?
Some of what you say about the religious influence in my life, and in general, is true. Clearly I lacked birth control info that would’ve changed my life. Clearly every young person needs the full gamut of education and info. No one is arguing that on the pro choice side.
It’s also crystal clear in my mind that we would do young women the greatest service by talking about the sex also. Every young girl is free to have sex with the nicest guy to the most awful dude alive if she feels like it. No one is arguing that. Apparently most women don’t think about whether the sex that got them pregnant was worth an abortion. Maybe most young girls have outstanding, fulfilling, awesome, satisfying sex every time, so if one instance gets them pregnant, they may think it’s unfortunate but they wouldn’t change a thing. The sex was well worth it. I guess I’m in the minority. The pressures sex that got me pregnant wasn’t worth it. Seems lots of people today also equate someone saying, the specific impregnating sex wasn’t worth it, to believing all sex is bad, girls should abstain, hell is real, etc. None of which I believed then or now.
Empowerment means the power to say no when you don’t want sex. Why is that a sin on the pro-choice side? Is every girl required to have sex before she feels like it to prove she’s sex-positive? To whom must she prove this? Other women? Why?
Men terrorize women in all sorts of ways. It's not like feminism can just declare victory and go home even if we somehow were able to fully protect reproductive rights and health care for all time. But you need those no matter what. I don't see that there's a conflict between that and what you're saying. It'd sort of be like ignoring property insurance and saying that climate change is the real problem and if we didn't have that we wouldn't have all these disasters. That can be true and you still need property insurance.
Multiple interwoven truths can be true at the same time for human beings.
Truth: Abortion must be legal. Incredulously, we now have to exert extreme effort and diligence to reclaim a right that should never have been lost in these acutely dysfunctional times.
Truth: Women and girls must be aware that it’s far preferable for them to *try hard* to avoid needing one—and it will always be up to them to have one; never the guy they have sex with—because abortion doesn’t carry the same pleasantness as, for example, walking on a cool beach in August.
Two truths, both true.
We’re talking about Truth #1.
We’re ignoring Truth #2. Why?
I am a dude.
I have no interest in blaming anyone for why they had an unplanned pregnancy.
Would it be awesome if people used 2-3x protection? Sure.
So if antiabortions want to airlift and drop free contraception from airplanes, stock it for free in University bathrooms, and teach it early in schools I will be all there with them.
But it’s pretty clear they absolutely don’t want to prevent unplanned pregnancies. They want more unplanned pregnancies.
Huh? Did you see the word blame anywhere? I typed the words and I didn’t use it, so point out where it appeared on your phone please.
Anti-abortionists want more unplanned pregnancies, is your response to how I want way fewer? I don’t care what they want. I care about ending younger, less wealthy, less educated women’s suffering through finding out they’re pregnant when they do not wish to be. I care about education and empowerment.
I don’t even blame *myself* for my idiot sex. Nor the boy. We were kids. He was a boy being a boy. I was a shy girl too scared to say no. I could’ve made the abortion appointment when I was in kindergarten. It was inevitable. Bummer but hey, it happens, right? The main thing is that abortion was accessible. Whatever lead up to it is blah, blah, blah.
I get that people don’t think abortion causes suffering *****for the young woman.*******. That an unwanted pregnancy may have a problematic or inconvenient aspect to it, but by God, abortion is the girl’s right.
Yep. It is. But abortion isn’t the actual story. Abortion is the last word on the last page. The first 300 pages are the real story. Every woman or girl who has ever had voluntary sex that lead to an abortion has a story that matters. Every one of those stories matters. All we focus on is abortion, pro or con, as though we couldn’t care less about understanding women’s stories. This doesn’t help a young, poor Black girl in Mississippi avoid getting pregnant to save herself even more suffering. Or any other woman.
Women suffer enough as it is.
You’re 100% correct that you didn’t say we should blame women anywhere. But I did react to the phrase “stupid sex”.
I am still processing all the things you wrote and your own experience. And I’m still processing what you said and struggling with how to make your advice actionable.
I really like the car metaphor for abortion where car accidents represent unwanted pregnancy. I use it here.
🚗 Lots of people drive cars. *No one* intends to get into accidents. We have risk mitigation strategies to reduce accidents (road design, inspections) and also reduce harm when accidents happen (seatbelts, airbags, crumple zones). And medical and insurance services to respond to harm.
Then… I think what you’re asking for is something like a drunk driving awareness campaign! 💡
I think where I struggle with that proposal is that I have antiabortion groups systematically trying to undo *every other component* that makes “driving” safe. They are eliminating risk mitigation strategies (birth control, education) and they are maximizing harm (laws, insurance, deliberate confusion). They are writing laws to make it so children can “drive” (teen pregnancy, child marriage). They are banning people from talking about safe driving or what happens when you get in an accident. They are rerouting funding malicious driving education programs and fake hospitals (CPCs). They don’t care about safety or accidents because they think about driving in a totally different way. In their mind, there is a right way to drive and you should follow it, or else.
If all of *that* ⬆️ wasn’t happening, I think your proposal — as I understand it — might make more sense to me because it would be adding to, not a proposal in the face of everything being ripped away hurtling us into the dark ages.
I think that messaging campaign would struggle in 2024 to not sound like a part of the anti campaign. Sounding like ALL the old dudes 👴👴 who blame women for getting pregnant and say something gross like they should have “kept their legs closed” while literally voting to prevent doctors from saving women’s organs in the ER.
And I think most sex — even the best sex — is a little stupid. I think people are programmed that way! We humans are somewhere between chimps and bonobos and our lack of risk aversion is how we became the dominant species. If you could send 100 people right now to Mars where they would 💯die, we would fill the rocket ship.
I just don’t know how to message “do it — but not like this” without causing collateral damage to those who do get abortions. 🦄 🌞 I believe every abortion is a good abortion because it’s a person taking care of their health. 🌈 ❤️
I’m not going to go around telling women to not have sex with men and avoid stupid sex. I am not positioned to do that as a dude. I would much prefer to focus my efforts on shoring up all the “driving safety” that antis are working 24/7 to destroy. And those efforts help those whose birth control failed (eg my friend with a vasectomy), and those who didn’t get a choice 😔 , and those who wanted kids but their fetus didn’t take right (my sister), and those needs a D&C post birth (my mother), and those miscarrying (my spouse), and those who need those medications for other reasons (my friend), and those who didn’t know better because they were denied resources, etc.
I think we’re better positioned to fight the antiabortion movement. It’s a simple message: The government should stay out of your bedroom and out of your doctors office. People get final say about what happens to their bodies. Consent.
Almost every bit of this I agree with including the driving analogy. But because anti-choice fanatics are determined to strip away choice, we therefore must not mention to girls (even in a whisper?), “just do yourself a favor and try hard to avoid unwanted pregnancy because you’ll be glad you did”? That’s crossing a bright yellow line into shark infested waters?
Does that make any real sense to you?
Also I’m intensely curious about these honest yet paradigm-forming sentences:
“I’m not going to go around telling women to not have sec with men and avoid stupid sex. I am not positioned to do that as a dude.”
This right here is one of the major foundational problems in society imo regarding sex, unwanted pregnancies and abortion. Men never talk about it so your honesty is refreshing.
Men want stupid sex to continue even if it causes pain for women. They care more about unfettered access to their own sexual pleasures than any pain they may bring to a woman by impregnating her which may lead to the need for an abortion which she may or may not have access to today.
It’s fantastic saying this piece of truth about men out loud, isn’t it? It’s freeing.
What kind of forum are you seeking?
I guess that also is where I am stuck with this conversation.
I will talk to *my children* about sex and pregnancy. We will talk about myths and readiness. I will likely show them this old NYT graphic about birth control efficacy https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/14/sunday-review/unplanned-pregnancies.html and talk about the importance of double or triple protection. And I will try to bust all the sex negative things they learn in school to frighten them into abstinence.
Is the forum you want is just better sex ed in schools? 🤔
I think we have the potential to offer better sex ed than at any point in human history. Check out the Universal Unitarian sex ed program. Dr Doe on YouTube. “Come as you are” by Emily Nagaoski. Amazing stuff! ‼️ But to provide *that level of education* means running against and defeating antiabortionists at the school boards across America and defending our rights.
And.. Regarding men’s selfishness… well I think girls are better taught to think of the community and consequences of their actions but I think most people — of all genders — are so in their own heads, their own pain, and their own pleasure especially when they’re young and hormones hit hardest have a hard time thinking about others and consequences. 🤷♂️
I have no way to agree with or dispute your thoughts about hormones raging equally between both sexes.
Women pay a bigger price if a pregnancy occurs. That’s beyond dispute. How much men care about the price women pay isn’t something I can measure, though based on years of watching men in action, I’d suggest they care far more about other things.
Forum? I don’t know for certain though social media is everyone’s forum of choice today. I’ve only started speaking out. I can’t stand what’s happening. We need to widen the pro/anti-choice debate much wider.
I appreciate your thoughtfulness.
One last question: Would men be more careful with sex if they were the ones who risked their own personal pregnancy?
Thank you for taking the time to write this. I especially love the paragraph pointing out the irrationality of sex, the comparison to other primates, and yes going to Mars! You've captured something important about life and being human that is usually left out when debates become clinical.
Thank you for this piece. They will never stop. Ohio is a perfect example. Rest up and continue to fight 😊💪❤️
Yeah, about that national clearinghouse website . . .
You’d think they’d get the idea eventually that we’re just going to enter a bunch of bogus information and pollute their database with as much garbage data they have to chase down and verify as humanly possible. But if they don’t, well, my patience is infinite. How about yours? A little creative monkey-wrenching is good for the soul.
Try not to use obviously false info like Haywood Jablome that makes it easy to filter out the crap. Make them work for it.
🎯❤️😁👏👏👏👏
I love this. I can't get pregnant and therefore will not need an abortion, but if this comes to pass, I will enter my information too, just for funsies!
Sharing women’s experiences is a really powerful tool. We have to educate people on the multitude of ways abortion bans harm women (and men). I think we should also be highlighting the stories the predate Roe, particularly all the research on Catholic hospitals, and linking it to what is happening in ban states. We all know this is about imposing one particular religious conception of life on all women, but I keep thinking specifically about how conservatives are trying to impose a religious “standard of care” in every hospital in the nation - a standard of care that isn’t limited to elective abortions but goes to women’s ability to receive treatment when pregnancy goes wrong. We know how harmful this is to women - the research on Catholic hospitals and the testimonies of doctors going back decades (in peer reviewed articles) lays out stories identical to what women are experiencing in secular, red state hospitals. I feel like the media/public has this sense that it will take time to really see the damage flow from these bans. And while that’s true in some respects (the long term consequences will be numerous and varied), we also can look to Catholic care and know exactly what sort of harms are occurring, even when it doesn’t make it into the local news.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2636458/
Thank you for the link. I was just about to ask if you had any suggestions where to find this information. I have been listening to a book called “When Abortion was a Crime”. It gave me a better understanding of how intrusive enforcing abortion bans were.