I’m getting more and more uneasy about MA Gov Healy protecting women in our state. The link you provided to the article covering the controversy with Crisis Pregnancy Centers reveals that in 2022 when the Gov was still the state’s Attorney General, she told the Councilor to hold back on the Ordinance that would have regulated CPCs. There was some worry about being open to free speech lawsuits. But if these centers are endangering women’s lives by pretending to be medical professionals, surely that trumps any free speech argument. I had written the Gov when the story of a woman who had visited Center thinking she was getting medical care, later suffered from an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy which resulted in her losing a fallopian tube. She’s suing the Center. I don’t understand how these facilities are allowed to continue to defraud vulnerable women. That can’t be legal! I haven’t heard back from the Gov. and I wonder if her reluctance to take on these centers has anything to do with their Catholic backing. It’s beyond distressing.
I am so frustrated by CT. The state legislators are running around the state patting themselves on the back for how supported women's reproductive care, which they have only partially done. They have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to maintain access to safe birthing in rural corners, as a 3rd hospital files to close services. There will be a maternity desert across the norther tier of the state. They passed a bill SB 986, an act protecting maternal health, saying “improves maternal healthcare by expanding birthing hospitals in Connecticut.” LIE. It created liscensing requirements for Doulas and Birthing CENTERS, which must be located must be in close proximity to a hospital where full labor and delivery services are available. That is NOT a birthing hospital.
If the corrupt hospital administrators shudder the services, we cannot have a 'birthing center'.
A woman is 14X more likely to die in childbirth than from an abortion. And rural women are 60% more likely to die before, during or after childbirth than their urban counterparts. AHHHH!!! What is wrong with these people. The CT Dems are hiding from the real problem in our state, including our state Rep
I was so furious about that NYT article. I was hoping Jessica would mention it. It was so misleading 8 had to read it twice to make sure I read it correctly. The worst part is is was in a story that also highlighted a group for reproductive justice which also gave women help is their pregnancies were forced which made the two groups seem similar. Had I not been closely following I wouldn’t necessarily have realized the detail about the parenting classes. They made it seem like it was extra credit common sense stuff. They offer classes and give you diapers. Sounds good right? Ugh. Women have been harmed by these centers. I can’t believe we still talk about them as legitimate and not essentially Christian re-education centers.
Christian groups get WAY too much benefit of the doubt because it's the historical religion of the majority here (and the "freedom of religion" thing we have :(
These people are a dangerous cult and when a woman dies from their laws they will have literally gotten away with murder.
I don't know how ANYONE can listen to those women, as they describe the suffering they (and their babies) experienced, so traumatized that they're literally sick on the witness stand, and think these laws are the right and moral thing. It's just unfathomably cruel.
I heard them on an NPR story. It was gut wrenching. The problem is I think people might actually believe the lie that although unfortunate, it was the doctor’s misinterpretation. No. Not having a brain doesn’t count if there is still cardiac activity.
I want to ask these people what they would risk going to jail for life for. No sane person would do that.
These women are the collateral damage of their crusade and they don’t care. It’s worth it to them if they prevent women from “getting away with” getting an abortion through some sort of loop hole.
For some reason reading this was harder today than usual. So hard not to want to scream! Side note, has anyone else seen a surge of anti-hormonal birth control social media content. Really worried about seeing that escalate, but maybe the new otc birth control it will help offset the newer holistic/negative narrative?
The forced birth crowd, of course, is behind it, but they’ve convinced a lot of health & wellness influencers (who are apparently dumb as rocks) that anything but “natural family planning’” is not only unhealthy for women, it’s polluting the planet. They make wild claims about the amount of hormones women on hormonal contraceptives release in their urine.
Of course, that ties right in with the testerical anti-trans expletive too. “Women on the pill are turning children gay and trans because their pee is polluting the world.”
It would be funny if it wasn’t so infuriating, dangerous, and dishonest.
This is the part from the NYT piece that made me nearly lose my dinner:
“The center offers free supplies to women undergoing other types of counseling, too. Among them: a stuffed animal containing an audio recording of the fetus’s heartbeat for pregnancies likely to end in a very brief life or stillbirth.”
That’s disgusting. Force a woman to carry a dead or dying child to term, perhaps have to watch that “brief life” struggle to breathe before dying - and give her a stuffed animal with a recording of the heartbeat as what, exactly? A consolation prize? A constant reminder of probably the most horrific day of her life?
I would never say anyone “has to” do something. That said, I think to a certain degree we all owe these women our attention and so long as you won’t get sick to your stomach doing it, listen to their testimonies. We all need, as much as possible, to bear witness.
Because the article was mostly about the brave people helping women access care. Then they just threw in a pregnancy crisis center as if it’s the same mission. It was infuriating.
I'll keep saying it, women should get out of red states if they want to have kids. The rest of us should help poor women leave. And the tax code could be changed to provide a tax credit for moving expenses.
I'm wondering to what extent the pretending strategy by Democratic elected officials is the right one. Introducing bills which pretend that leaving your state either for abortion care or for abortion training is an acceptable and satisfactory solution to what's going on. I guess it's calm and civil, but Republicans have made it clear they are considering abortion to be murder, so they're not just going to say, yeah, ok, fund travel and as long as it's not in our state we'll be fine. I suppose we have to go through the motions, to show we tried??
To add to it, since there's no edit button. Being an accredited OBGYN requires abortion training. But Republicans oppose all abortion. Therefore they by necessity oppose OBGYN accreditation too, right?
I would not be surprised if these states pass laws against needing that training to be accredited in their states. Of course, that’s incredibly dangerous for pregnant patients, who may need that care in a medical emergency, but I haven’t seen that stop red states yet.
Hell, if they’re trying to ban women traveling for abortion, why not ban doctors from traveling for training?
It depends on how you look at it - ACOG, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is a national organization, and they require the training.
But states license doctors, and there’s no reason that they can’t either set up their own credentialing organization, or just decree that ACOG credentialing isn’t necessary to be an OB-GYN in that state.
Most people, when going into a doctor’s office don’t check to see if the national board of their specialty has granted credentials to that doctor.
I'd like to have a metric to know how far stories like the Texas lawsuit and testimony are permeating into the public consciousness. It's obvious to me on these types of stories whom the public will sympathize with, but if they're not hearing about it because of abortion/pregnancy/reproductive system taboos, or because it's "just a culture war issue", not a 'serious' issue (i.e. whatever men are interested in) then they don't know. Word of mouth and going viral matter too; we have that 10% stat from that one poll but I'd like to know more.
Curious if the NYT is even relevant anymore and glad I cancelled my subscription. SisterSong breathes life into all of my cells of care and rage and helps me find courage.
That NYTimes piece was *awful.* Utter trash. And oh my god listening to that segment on the women in Texas and then hearing that woman at the end from Texas Right to Life saying “the law is fine as it is” was crazy-making. How can you hear this testimony and still have that be your stance??? You have to have zero empathy and zero understanding of ethics. Anyway, I’m saying nothing new, just super angry reading this one - it really got to me today. I want to send all the hugs in the world to the women who testified.
Somebody is going to die and the country is going to be on fire. The George Floyd protests won't even compare. Seriously surprised it hasn't happened so far. They've already had four deaths in two years in tiny Poland.
I'd hope there'd be as much outrage as the Black men killed in police shootings considering the high rates of maternal mortality for Black women in this country.
The conservatives are saying the police have backed down and that's why we had the big increase in crime, which is one of their issues. As if police can't do their job without killing unarmed civilians. Yeah. So they may still be winning the messaging, but yeah I'll take fewer deaths.
Because changing your stance means that you were wrong. And the only thing worse than abortion is being wrong about abortion. A position of moral superiority is the foundation of their identity and so personal growth and, even empathy, is an existential threat to their sense of self.
I didn’t this last session (I was fresh in grief and am still honing my voice), but that’s a good thought for future arguments - pride is a sin after all!
I’m getting more and more uneasy about MA Gov Healy protecting women in our state. The link you provided to the article covering the controversy with Crisis Pregnancy Centers reveals that in 2022 when the Gov was still the state’s Attorney General, she told the Councilor to hold back on the Ordinance that would have regulated CPCs. There was some worry about being open to free speech lawsuits. But if these centers are endangering women’s lives by pretending to be medical professionals, surely that trumps any free speech argument. I had written the Gov when the story of a woman who had visited Center thinking she was getting medical care, later suffered from an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy which resulted in her losing a fallopian tube. She’s suing the Center. I don’t understand how these facilities are allowed to continue to defraud vulnerable women. That can’t be legal! I haven’t heard back from the Gov. and I wonder if her reluctance to take on these centers has anything to do with their Catholic backing. It’s beyond distressing.
Good points. It's one thing if they want to tread carefully, but they need to be doing something.
I keep weeping around this issue these days
HELP!!!
I am so frustrated by CT. The state legislators are running around the state patting themselves on the back for how supported women's reproductive care, which they have only partially done. They have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to maintain access to safe birthing in rural corners, as a 3rd hospital files to close services. There will be a maternity desert across the norther tier of the state. They passed a bill SB 986, an act protecting maternal health, saying “improves maternal healthcare by expanding birthing hospitals in Connecticut.” LIE. It created liscensing requirements for Doulas and Birthing CENTERS, which must be located must be in close proximity to a hospital where full labor and delivery services are available. That is NOT a birthing hospital.
If the corrupt hospital administrators shudder the services, we cannot have a 'birthing center'.
A woman is 14X more likely to die in childbirth than from an abortion. And rural women are 60% more likely to die before, during or after childbirth than their urban counterparts. AHHHH!!! What is wrong with these people. The CT Dems are hiding from the real problem in our state, including our state Rep
I was so furious about that NYT article. I was hoping Jessica would mention it. It was so misleading 8 had to read it twice to make sure I read it correctly. The worst part is is was in a story that also highlighted a group for reproductive justice which also gave women help is their pregnancies were forced which made the two groups seem similar. Had I not been closely following I wouldn’t necessarily have realized the detail about the parenting classes. They made it seem like it was extra credit common sense stuff. They offer classes and give you diapers. Sounds good right? Ugh. Women have been harmed by these centers. I can’t believe we still talk about them as legitimate and not essentially Christian re-education centers.
Christian groups get WAY too much benefit of the doubt because it's the historical religion of the majority here (and the "freedom of religion" thing we have :(
These people are a dangerous cult and when a woman dies from their laws they will have literally gotten away with murder.
I don't know how ANYONE can listen to those women, as they describe the suffering they (and their babies) experienced, so traumatized that they're literally sick on the witness stand, and think these laws are the right and moral thing. It's just unfathomably cruel.
I heard them on an NPR story. It was gut wrenching. The problem is I think people might actually believe the lie that although unfortunate, it was the doctor’s misinterpretation. No. Not having a brain doesn’t count if there is still cardiac activity.
I want to ask these people what they would risk going to jail for life for. No sane person would do that.
These women are the collateral damage of their crusade and they don’t care. It’s worth it to them if they prevent women from “getting away with” getting an abortion through some sort of loop hole.
The NYTimes is absolute garbage. They have been for years. It’s just now really obvious since they’re going after things white women care about.
For some reason reading this was harder today than usual. So hard not to want to scream! Side note, has anyone else seen a surge of anti-hormonal birth control social media content. Really worried about seeing that escalate, but maybe the new otc birth control it will help offset the newer holistic/negative narrative?
Yes, Jessica has written about it here, IIRC.
The forced birth crowd, of course, is behind it, but they’ve convinced a lot of health & wellness influencers (who are apparently dumb as rocks) that anything but “natural family planning’” is not only unhealthy for women, it’s polluting the planet. They make wild claims about the amount of hormones women on hormonal contraceptives release in their urine.
Of course, that ties right in with the testerical anti-trans expletive too. “Women on the pill are turning children gay and trans because their pee is polluting the world.”
It would be funny if it wasn’t so infuriating, dangerous, and dishonest.
This is the part from the NYT piece that made me nearly lose my dinner:
“The center offers free supplies to women undergoing other types of counseling, too. Among them: a stuffed animal containing an audio recording of the fetus’s heartbeat for pregnancies likely to end in a very brief life or stillbirth.”
That’s disgusting. Force a woman to carry a dead or dying child to term, perhaps have to watch that “brief life” struggle to breathe before dying - and give her a stuffed animal with a recording of the heartbeat as what, exactly? A consolation prize? A constant reminder of probably the most horrific day of her life?
These people are sick.
The hell if they'll pay their medical bills. This is the next best thing don't you know.
I was VERY unnerved to read that NYT article....I personally generally read NYT and NYM all the time.
NYT is getting more and more disappointing with this "both sides" crap. Seriously considering cancelling my subscription.
I would never say anyone “has to” do something. That said, I think to a certain degree we all owe these women our attention and so long as you won’t get sick to your stomach doing it, listen to their testimonies. We all need, as much as possible, to bear witness.
And now I’m getting to the part about the NYT article. To use another acronym - WTF!!!
I somehow missed that times article. It’s fucking enraging. Thanks for highlighting.
Because the article was mostly about the brave people helping women access care. Then they just threw in a pregnancy crisis center as if it’s the same mission. It was infuriating.
I'll keep saying it, women should get out of red states if they want to have kids. The rest of us should help poor women leave. And the tax code could be changed to provide a tax credit for moving expenses.
The media always does Republicans' job for them. Always.
I'm wondering to what extent the pretending strategy by Democratic elected officials is the right one. Introducing bills which pretend that leaving your state either for abortion care or for abortion training is an acceptable and satisfactory solution to what's going on. I guess it's calm and civil, but Republicans have made it clear they are considering abortion to be murder, so they're not just going to say, yeah, ok, fund travel and as long as it's not in our state we'll be fine. I suppose we have to go through the motions, to show we tried??
To add to it, since there's no edit button. Being an accredited OBGYN requires abortion training. But Republicans oppose all abortion. Therefore they by necessity oppose OBGYN accreditation too, right?
Zach,
I would not be surprised if these states pass laws against needing that training to be accredited in their states. Of course, that’s incredibly dangerous for pregnant patients, who may need that care in a medical emergency, but I haven’t seen that stop red states yet.
Hell, if they’re trying to ban women traveling for abortion, why not ban doctors from traveling for training?
Do you need abortion training to become an OBGYN? I feel like I read something many years ago where you can opt out or is that for being a GP?
I be,I’ve it’s for being a GP.
It depends on how you look at it - ACOG, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is a national organization, and they require the training.
But states license doctors, and there’s no reason that they can’t either set up their own credentialing organization, or just decree that ACOG credentialing isn’t necessary to be an OB-GYN in that state.
Most people, when going into a doctor’s office don’t check to see if the national board of their specialty has granted credentials to that doctor.
That would be the next step, and I don't know whether the correct approach is to just pretend and wait for them to do what we know they're going to. 🤷
I'd like to have a metric to know how far stories like the Texas lawsuit and testimony are permeating into the public consciousness. It's obvious to me on these types of stories whom the public will sympathize with, but if they're not hearing about it because of abortion/pregnancy/reproductive system taboos, or because it's "just a culture war issue", not a 'serious' issue (i.e. whatever men are interested in) then they don't know. Word of mouth and going viral matter too; we have that 10% stat from that one poll but I'd like to know more.
Curious if the NYT is even relevant anymore and glad I cancelled my subscription. SisterSong breathes life into all of my cells of care and rage and helps me find courage.
Thinking about cancelling my subscription, too. Hardly read any of their articles anymore.
That NYTimes piece was *awful.* Utter trash. And oh my god listening to that segment on the women in Texas and then hearing that woman at the end from Texas Right to Life saying “the law is fine as it is” was crazy-making. How can you hear this testimony and still have that be your stance??? You have to have zero empathy and zero understanding of ethics. Anyway, I’m saying nothing new, just super angry reading this one - it really got to me today. I want to send all the hugs in the world to the women who testified.
Somebody is going to die and the country is going to be on fire. The George Floyd protests won't even compare. Seriously surprised it hasn't happened so far. They've already had four deaths in two years in tiny Poland.
Also only an American would call Poland tiny :)
California has a larger population lol
It's close though!
They're hoping it's a Black woman because they have experience surviving that politically :(
I'd hope there'd be as much outrage as the Black men killed in police shootings considering the high rates of maternal mortality for Black women in this country.
Well there would be. But that's my point. When Black people die nothing changes.
Seems like there's been less police deaths. Haven't heard any news in a year or so. We just gotta stay angry and vote. All we can do.
The conservatives are saying the police have backed down and that's why we had the big increase in crime, which is one of their issues. As if police can't do their job without killing unarmed civilians. Yeah. So they may still be winning the messaging, but yeah I'll take fewer deaths.
Because changing your stance means that you were wrong. And the only thing worse than abortion is being wrong about abortion. A position of moral superiority is the foundation of their identity and so personal growth and, even empathy, is an existential threat to their sense of self.
Btw, I do hope you say this in your testimony. I really really hate sanctimonious people. They're the worst.
I didn’t this last session (I was fresh in grief and am still honing my voice), but that’s a good thought for future arguments - pride is a sin after all!
Well said!
Exactly.