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I'm with Women's Voices of SW Florida, one of the groups who is part of Floridians for Protecting Freedom working on the ballot initiative. Thank you so much for giving us a shout-out and to anyone here who has donated!! We need it and we appreciate it. It's not been easy going up against DeSantis and his cronies!

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I just had a thought. Would it be possible to rename “medication abortion” to “emergency contraception”? Can be used up to 10 weeks after having sex. It acts similarly to emergency contraception. Renaming would put it in a different category which would be hopefully harder to take away.

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founding

Today I saw AED mentioned in 'Men Yell at Me' in the further reading section {No one is meticulously charting the effects of anti-abortion laws better than Jessica Valenti in her Abortion, Every Day newsletter.} Congrats - and under that was a Harper article "The Right to Not Be Pregnant

by Charlotte Shane" https://harpers.org/archive/2022/10/the-right-to-not-be-pregnant-asserting-an-essential-right/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email --- I had shivers as I read it and am curious if you have read it? Also curious about why pro-choice hasn't moved the conversation to full bodily autonomy rights like this article states and am curious if you know of any movement leaders who are trying to do as the article suggests: “From now on, we who fight for reproductive freedom must announce our cause in the clearest terms: every impregnatable person has the right to not be pregnant.”

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Omg! I'm not sure which was more horrific, the article or the triptych. Sheesh.

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Phenomenal article. So much good stuff in it. You might send it to her email. Seems like she doesn't check the comments very often. If you get the newsletter in your email, you can just hit reply and email her directly. She's responded to mine on the two occasions I've emailed her.

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Lately I've been saying "it's a pregnancy, not a person." I don't care what anyone thinks of me in response. That's what it is. And it doesn't take precedence over me, my daughters -- no woman. Ever.

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I love that response. So true.

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Ruth Marcus in WaPo has a good piece on McConnell trying to spin the SC as independent and centrist. The Grand Oppressive Party knows it's on the wrong side of public opinion. It can spin all it wants. Doesn't matter. We feel the oppression and we will vote !

I think Dems in MO shouldn't just focus on men. There are quite a lot of women who are just delusional - I have to say it. Doesn't it seem better to focus on a fanatical ideology? Too many women are complicit in this.

And here -- IA just approved the ban. Female gov is signing it. It's not just men who are directly doing this -- yeah, a patriarchal ideology but wow, lots of women willing to subjugate themselves, their daughters, sisters, aunts, friends.

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I don’t agree with the way these women interpret the Bible, but they basically believe the Bible says women should always submit to the man. They do this because they believe God will reward them with stars in their heavenly crowns. It is utter bullshit, and I’ve found it pointless to try logic or reason with them. We must defeat them at the ballot box to avoid this treatment. I mean, I opened a bank account in another country today because I think it’s reasonable to assume these people will try to limit my ability to have money without my husband’s permission. I’m not being hyperbolic or hysterical to think they’d go that far. They will if we don’t stop them.

Sorry to be a bit rambling. Have a migraine today. Probably ramps up my rage meter.

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We'll stop them. Eventually. Even the Nazis were ultimately defeated. What I'm not sure of, and the reason I used that particular analogy, is how much destruction will happen before we win. It would be so much better to nip it in the bud earlier, but I guess sometimes people have to see the destruction before they're motivated to fight :(

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I really just don't understand the demented psychology of these women, at all. But I guess white supremacy will do that to you.

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Many years ago, back in 1968, I was a 19year old who got pregnant. My “pre-med” boyfriend suggested several methods to terminate that pregnancy but none of them worked. What worked was a knitting needle inserted into my uterus. One of my roommates had 2 abortions, the second rendered her sterile, another one died. Back then condoms were by request of a pharmacist only and only married women could get birth control

My generation (boomers) thought we’d invented sex. We hadn’t, of course. Every generation thinks that. It sickens me that we are trying to impose “moral” codes on younger generation that older generations rejected.

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One of the asshole Iowa male legislators said women shouldn’t have sex if they don’t want to be pregnant. 1. I wonder if this asshole has a wife, though they always do; 2. I wonder what he’d do if she refused to have sex. He’d force her most likely. Which is why limiting women’s options for independence is so important to them.

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Wouldn't be surprised in a culture where rape is not a concept.

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Wow that knitting needle sounds like it must have been painful. So sorry you couldn't get the care you needed. After Texas passed sb8, I was institutionalized and one of the other patients was in there for punching herself in the stomach until she miscarried when she was 14 weeks pregnant. She was schizophrenic and a drug addict. She knew she was in no condition to be having babies and had to take the matter into her own hands. Literally. Can't believe we're going back to those days.

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I was fortunate that I didn’t perforate my uterus and was able to carry two very wanted pregnancies. One of my college roommates wasn’t able to have children after her back ally abortion. My sister’s best friend died. I’m afraid we’ll be be seeing many more cases of women dying from illegal abortions.

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I'm surprised I haven't heard any news about people ending up in emergency rooms. Or hospitals bringing back "abortion wards".

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Eff dannenfelser. I hope someone she loves has a catastrophic pregnancy and can't get care. I HATE wishing ill on anyone, but I am SO DAMN SICK of these self-righteous, evil people.

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Most likely, she’d be like my mother and tell that person the whole experience was God’s judgment for her hidden sin. (I have a chronic illness that’s caused partial blindness, and my mom said a variation of that theme to me, though being a vocal liberal is overt sin in her opinion.) These people don’t have empathy. They believe trials and tribulations will bring people to God. Sigh.

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I stood in the Capitol with Felicia today. She is a force.

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author

Totally incredible

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"Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, wrote a column at The Hill arguing that “the dictionary definition of ‘ban’ is ‘to forbid someone to do something’…In no state are all abortions forbidden.”"

"War is peace.

Freedom is slavery.

Ignorance is strength."

—George Orwell, 1984

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Forbidding any one abortion or type of abortion in a state constitutes a ban. By Dannenfelser's logic, unless a ban "protects" every single fetus without exception it cannot be called a protection.

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And they can hardly call it "protection" considering most of these states refused Medicaid expansion and have the highest maternal and infant mortality and child poverty rates in the country.

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Also, the name of their whole stupid organization is a lie. Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were not anti-abortion: https://time.com/4106547/susan-b-anthony-elizabeth-cady-stanton-abortion/. In fact, in addition to supporting abortion rights, Anthony and Stanton once defended a woman accused of infanticide as being unjustly prosecuted for a crime due to "unjust laws that make crimes for women that are not crimes for men!" (https://www.history.com/news/the-shocking-infanticide-trial-that-exposed-sexual-harassment-in-1868)

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Interesting articles. Really was horrifying for working-class women for generations. Seems like anti-abortion's intentions are to bring back these horrifying conditions at the hands of their own husbands!

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