I never forgave him for dismissing reproductive rights as "Identity Politics." It is not "Identity Politics if it is your daily experiences. IIRC, he suggested throwing us women under the bus, maybe down the road, he'd consider us, just so we could get anti-abortion types on board. As if!
“Yes, Republicans are relying on bullshit and scare tactics to distract from the truth. But we should still be able to talk about why abortion later in pregnancy is necessary!”
💯 I want to see Dems get ANGRY about this. I get the whole “they go low, we go high” deal, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be loud or enraged or use impolite language. Start citing the harm and do it loudly. That Ohio ad was a great start. They don’t care if you get sepsis or have organ failure or die. They don’t care if you have to birth a doomed pregnancy. They don’t care about your life or your family or your friends. Get pissed and show it and the media will cover it.
They don’t care if two people will die and doing an abortion will save one of them. And if they don’t know that, we need to tell them. But I think they are playing dumb.
I am honestly still unsure of how to respond to the viability question. Jessica, You are suggesting to say "yes, late pregnancy abortion happens. It's rare but it's needed"?
I am mindful of the article I read about how the big repro justice groups are not in agreement on whether or not to allow "viability" in referenda language (knowing that it is a meaningless not evidence-based standard) .this is really hurting us.
There are only a handful of providers in the country that provide third trimester abortions - I’m aware of only three - and they are very costly - $10,000 or more. Traveling across the country for a difficult procedure that is extremely expensive is clearly not something that anyone does on a whim. When discussing third trimester abortion, it cannot be assumed that voters are aware of this. Most people seem to think that third trimester procedures are performed by all abortion providers, and that the financial cost is no different than the cost of a medication or surgical abortion in the early weeks of a pregnancy.
Viability standards are a red herring like the "when does life begin" question. When we buy into either debate, we have already ceded ground on the question of whether abortion requires any regulation at all. Seems like the Republicans believe the government should regulate only one thing (not corporations, guns, campaign spending, drug safety, environmental protection, and so on) and that is women's bodies.
What's insulting is they make it sound like women get later abortions on a whim when they're always very wanted pregnancies that have gone horribly wrong. Even when they are a threat to a woman's life, doctors will always do everything they can to save the baby. It's so insulting.
I always point out that less than 1% of abortions are after twenty weeks and all of them are for severe fetal abnormalities/incompatibility with life. If a pregnancy is a threat to a woman's life, they do everything they can to save an infant if it's at the point of viability around 24 weeks when they can get care in a NICU which is why they're so rare to nonexistent after this point.
Pointing out that there are only a handful of third trimester abortion providers in the country, that the procedure costs $10,000, and takes several days, has had an impact on some people I’ve talked to about this.
How about “Exceptions require bureaucratic approval & access / therefore there are no exceptions / legalize abortion”. Dang, still too long. “Keep your doctor out of jail”. Nope no good. There actually hasn’t been any access in my state for a long time. And interestingly, we are sitting on a huge pile of money given by feds for COVID, welfare, etc., that the state is just holding, or spending, who knows, but poor people who qualify and apply for it aren’t getting it. My cousin in another red state can’t drink her water because of a nearby mine.
My state also proudly turned down a quiet offer from the state hospital association to pay the federal portion of Medicaid expansion after the feds’ obligation because they knew otherwise most of the hospitals wouldn’t make it. And now we have the highest rate of hospital closure in the nation last I looked and we are one of those areas with overlapping maternal and abortion deserts. And the part about the hospital association was not reported in the media. I find the fact that people are so fixated on making women carry babies that cannot live while we are literally killing all other living creatures on the planet just mind boggling. Lots of interesting priorities. Like volleyball stadiums instead of food for impoverished. Wayy off topic.
Lol (not): my red state too. It's like a game of Oppression Olympics. I do think the phrase i"pregnancy is too complicated to be legislated" might be as good as we are going to get. It will make people think of the stories they've read about.
I think the best one that's come up is 'Pregnancy is too complicated to legislate'. If there's a weakness to that it's that it might sound like a cop out, and I can hear Republicans saying Democrats legislate everything else. It's important to have stories of real people's pregnancies to go to when you have to explain this argument, and you need lots of them; you don't want to keep going to the same one.
How about “doctors will avoid prison & ignore exceptions-legalize abortion.” There is no such thing as exception.
Years ago my husband as a pathologist had administrators calling him trying to weasel out info about miscarriage remains that was being tested for genetic disease-was it ACTUALLY an abortion? When it was legal here. Wth business was it of theirs? MDs have been terrorized. Just like after all the pill mills were closed, SWAT teams started showing up in hospice offices and seizing assets to prevent hiring effective defense and basing sentences on weights of pills that are mostly filler and acetaminophen like they were uncut cocaine. Out of control. I have lots of problems with medicine, but threatening people for doing their job and/or forcing them to leave people to suffer is wrong.
“Without the exceptions, it is very difficult to win the elections. We would probably lose the majorities in 2024 without the exceptions, and perhaps the presidency itself.”---Donald Trump
Once again, he says the quiet part out loud. While growing up, every school morning I took a pledge to our nation for liberty and justice for all. We talk about justice, but we don't talk about how we evaluate whether or not something is just. Donald Trump shows us that the real objective is to win, not to seek justice for the American people. It is a simple question, "Is it just to require a child to carry and deliver the seed of her rapist, risking her own health and future?" Is that justice? Or is it aiding and abetting after the fact? Trump doesn't care. It has never and will never concern him because it has never and will never happen TO HIM. I know that exceptions aren't real, but when they don't even really matter because their goal isn't "justice for all", then we can point to this and say, ALL means only certain people. This is, and always has been, about power.
It’s justice if, way down deep, you think that girls/women should be punished for having sex - even if the sex wasn’t their choice, they are now “damaged goods.” Most of these people still believe the hymen mythology, and consider it a “freshness seal.” Once you remove a freshness seal, well, the product is spoiled. If she was raped, she clearly wasn’t wasn’t taking proper precautions to protect her freshness seal.
One time in adult Sunday School the lesson was about women in the church's history who martyred themselves for their virginity. These women are venerated throughout church history for choosing death over rape. I remember slowly having a reverse "come to Jesus" moment and realizing what utter crap it is to value a woman's chastity over her very life.
I'm a Virginia resident and finally got my first anti-choice ad today while playing a game on my phone. It was the most shoddily put together, out-of-context bullshit and where they basically accuse Democrats of, you know, infanticide if they maintain control of the house. Excited to vote as per usual - if you're a resident, early voting started today!
I say don’t get tangled up in “viability” or “until birth.” The ad with the girl in a hospital bed, surrounded by her dad, a doc and a GOP legislator is a shot between the eyes. Keep it simple.
That one certainly nails it! I like the one with the republican congressman in the bedroom with the couple, telling them he is in their bedroom to stay. Always good to make a clear point.
Yep. I also picture the lawmakers, or maybe the six right-wing SCOTUS justices all shrunk down and living in the woman's uterus. There's a little 'Property of GOP' flag planted there like it was the moon landing.
"In front of the courthouse today, ADF attorney Kevin Theriot tried to redefine abortion:
“Where you have to go in and take the baby to save the life of the mother, they don’t see that as an abortion because there’s a different intent. The doctor isn’t intending to kill the child. The child dies in an attempt to save the mother.”
For months, I’ve been warning about conservatives’ attempts to change the fundamental legal and medical definition of abortion—they are getting it out there in suits, in the media, and in legislation. Make sure to keep an out for more bullshit like this."
The above is standard Catholic moral theology. For example, in the end-of-life area, if you give someone a heavy dose of morphine (enough to kill them) it is considered ok if your intent is to ease their pain, rather than to kill them. To me it just illustrates that abortion bans are really imposing on society as whole the specific moral theological views of Catholicism. There is supposed to be separation of church and state, and abortion bans violate that basic Constitutional principle.
Medical practitioners won’t agree on when abortion is “necessary” to save a mother and they don’t want anything to do with risk when legality is involved. What is the definition of serious harm? They will minimize risk of harm to stay away from these cases. Removing any fetal tissue is medically abortion. I agree that once you are in the weeds, anti-abortionists have a chance to win. Legalize it all. And publicize how little late term is used and the circumstances.
Oh and no kidding, the give morphine to ease pain at death and who cares if they die a little sooner has now become let’s not addict them, and if people die with an opioid in their system it could be an overdose-let’s give Narcan so they can be good and awake at the end. It’s shockingly punitive and personally I believe it’s also about religion-you’re being punished if you’re experiencing pain, you deserve it, you should learn to endure it, etc.
Years ago, my uncle died of cancer. It was everywhere in his body at that point, pain was overwhelming. He was terminal, and he was never going to leave the hospital at that point.
They refused to give him morphine, because they were afraid that he’d become addicted.
I agree with you AND I think taking the baby to save the life of the mother is a more accurate framing of a number of cases. I don’t know how this could be used as an argument against abortion. Perhaps I’m missing something. Should we let toddlers kill moms too? Anybody else? Open season? Maybe a limited season like deer season? (Sorry I went a little Jonathan Swift-potato famine-let the Irish eat their babies kind of sardonic humor there).
Related note: if fetuses are persons, are they committing murder if mom dies? Are we stopping a murder by fetus in saving mom? Why is mom’s life worth less than fetus? I would like this explained by pro-life movement.
Although this assumes the fetus is normal. There are certainly situations where the mother’s life is threatened by an abnormal fetus at 24 weeks. I guess I see what you mean now-why bother focusing on the viability point? I mean it’s A thing, but it’s not THE thing.
That's why I like to quote Father Austin Fagothey who wrote Right and Reason. This Catholic priest was deeply respected and lauded. He wrote that every right carries associated responsibilities. If a fetus has rights, then what are the associated responsibilities of the fetus and how does the fetus intend to carry out those associated responsibilities? If the woman has the responsibility to carry the fetus, what are her associated rights to that heavy responsibility? These should be rights that non-pregnant people do not also have. I have yet to hear an answer to these questions.
Is it supposed to work both ways then? Rights yield responsibilities but responsibilities also yield rights? Because to me that's certainly an argument for giving women the greater powers in society. One thing Catholics are particularly and perhaps uniquely known for is veneration of Mary, but from that they come to the exact opposite conclusion from mine on the role of women. In a way I feel like they're SO close, but their wrong answer, women only valuable for martyr's sacrifice as mothers, has been discussed a lot here.
Since it’s an ethical issue balancing rights and responsibilities, I would argue that it would be unethical to impose responsibilities on someone while withholding any associated rights. I can’t remember if this point was made. It’s not like the “all squares are rectangles but all rectangles aren’t squares “ argument. I’m curious if you can think of a responsibility that citizens are given that DOES NOT entail any associated rights. I couldn’t.
So much of the religious/Catholic thinking implicitly excludes women as full moral beings, which is necessary to justify an all-male power structure. Unless the writing explicitly references women I would (cynically) assume it precludes any interpretation beneficial to us. I did have a little chuckle at the apparent rift between US Catholic leaders and the actual Pope: https://www.newsweek.com/ex-priest-breaks-pope-criticism-american-catholic-politics-1822925
Yes. The Catholic church and the evangelicals are an alliance made in hell. The evangelicals provide the foot soldiers, the attitude, the fundamentalist approach to everything, but they're far too stupid to craft policy and laws; it takes a different kind of evil for that and that's where the Catholics come in. (Disclosure: I come from a Catholic family.)
Roe was never enough. While it did guarantee that abortion cannot be stopped completely, it also allowed states to impose all kinds of ridiculous waiting periods, pelvic exams, etc. What we really need is a constitutional amendment that makes it impossible for government to play any role in the decision that should be left to the woman.
Roe really didn’t open the doors for those limitations. That didn’t start happening until the Casey decision in 1992. At the time, many on the prochoice side were relieved that SCOTUS hadn’t outright overturned Roe. I was pissed, because I could see it leading to all the regulations and limits we saw from then on - all of which, of course, led to the Dobbs decision.
It’s been passed by the requisite number of states, it just took too long, but I think it’s in the hands of the Parliamentarian now, and that person needs to be flooded with letters.
Roe was a compromise, but it was really the Planned Parenthood v Casey decision in 1992, IMO, that really ensured that Roe would eventually be overturned. Had they left Roe alone, most prochoice people could have lived with it, because it did allow for third trimester procedures when necessary for the life, or health - including mental health - of the pregnant person. Notice that current “exceptions” are either specifically written as relating to physical health, or written to specifically exclude mental health.
What really changed with Casey was the insertion of the “undue burden” concept. Under Roe, the state couldn’t restrict a woman’s right at all in the first trimester. There was a strict scrutiny standard of review. But Casey substituted the undue burden standard, under which abortion restrictions would be unconstitutional when they were enacted for "the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus." If a state could reasonably claim the regulation wasn’t trying to deliberately put a big obstacle in her way, if it didn’t unduly burden her right to abortion, then the regulation could pass muster in the courts.
So shit like waiting periods, ultrasounds, state mandated information, etc. were argued not to unduly burden her. They were just trying to make sure the pregnant person was fully informed, and had time to think about whether or not they *really* wanted an abortion after they had all that information. The state was really just trying to help, you see?
Natalie, if you’ve never read the Casey decision, it’s worth doing. At the time it was published, pre-widespread internet, it was harder to get your hands on a copy of the actual decision, but I went out of my way to find and read it. While a lot of prochoice people were rejoicing that SCOTUS hadn’t taken thr opportunity to overturn Roe entirely, after reading it, I was tearing my hair out.
It was abundantly clear that with the Casey decision, and the insertion of the undue burden standard, SCOTUS had opened Pandora’s Box, but I didn’t see hope left in the bottom like Pandora did. All I saw was a diminishing of the rights as they were declared under Roe.
Casey left the right to abortion in place, but it gave states the ability to restrict access. If you could find a judge to agree that whatever screwy regulation they wanted to pass didn’t “unduly burden” the woman, that regulation was golden. It’s such a vague phrase, like the vague wordings being used in exceptions to abortion bans.
Who the hell knows what unduly burdens a person who is seeking an abortion? A regulation that a judge says passes muster can be a regulation that prevents a specific person from getting an abortion at all.
The problem was the interpretation; judges (and legislatures) kept chipping away. Any law, any constitution, is only as good as the officials enforcing it. There's a limit to how much the law can protect you when 47% of the voters are evil. Unfortunately the only thing that solves the problem is for those people to disappear from the face of the earth.
The thing about Donald Trump is he's already BEEN president. When you break something you don't get to say you're fixing it. That's Politics 101, and it applies to plenty of issues besides abortion, and if the Biden campaign can't handle that god help us all.
Adam Serwer’s article in The Atlantic (which Jessica quoted here the other day) is the perfect ad. Every one of his statements in the paragraph she cited can be illustrated with real people.
I was very fond of that quote, and yes, you're right. So of course they won't do it 🤦 I have to be at least somewhat concerned that if Joe Biden was any good at running for president, he'd have won a long time ago. And the covid campaign was different. Personally I'm fine with the guy and I think he's done a good job considering, but that seems to be a minority viewpoint. From what I read this campaign might have to be like Weekend at Bernie's.
Joe Biden is an old-school politician who doesn’t like the attack-dog style, which is the only thing our completely fucked system and electorate seems to equate with strength. I could say many negative things about him, but the mainstream media seems thrilled to do that job.
So I’ll say he has been a stellar president. He is the only person I can imagine dealing with Russia and Ukraine. He has worked for more economic benefits for more Americans and more green energy than other recent presidents. He is (finally, belatedly) starting to hammer anti-abortion. And we must stop focusing on the negative and enthusiastically support him. This focus on the negative and ‘I’m mad that he didn’t do x about my issue’ when he has, in the aggregate, accomplished so much are why democrats don’t win in landslides. We have got to unite behind our person and stop getting in our own way.
Absolutely on target. Stop criticizing Biden! As he has said himself, don’t compare him to the almighty, compare him to the alternative. Next to anyone on the Republican side, Biden is a radical progressive. Actually, come to think of it, he *is* the most progressive president in my lifetime.
Most of the campaign promises Biden hasn’t accomplished - it hasn’t been for lack of trying. You can’t lay the failure of student loan forgiveness at his feet. He tried.
Yes, he’s elderly, and no, he isn’t comfortable with the kind of dishonesty and aggression that Republicans use. But he’s been around a very long time, and his institutional knowledge is very deep - if there *is* a way to get something done, and not have it reversed at the first chance Republicans get, he does it.
I’ve actually been surprised at how much he has accomplished.
I think a big part of that is, as you say, the negative press, when there are many accomplishments that should be touted, they hammer on some stupid comment made by a republican (in bad faith, but that goes without saying). I think it would kill WaPo, or the NYT to say anything positive.
I agree on Biden as president. His campaign ability worries me; I don't want him to get in his own way, to borrow your phrase. To your first sentence, I think the problem is a little different from that. It's not that attacking is strength necessarily, but that voters are far more motivated by anger at and fear of the other side than they are by anything they like about their own side. Democrats cannot get enough votes to win just from people who approve of Democrats; rather they need to get everybody who has misgivings about Republicans. The calculation on the other side is mostly the same, which is why I often ponder, what makes Democrats so threatening to people? Anyway, I'm pretty sure that 're-elect Biden, he's done a good job' is a losing campaign (not saying that's what you were suggesting!) I hope his campaign team understands that even if the candidate is reluctant, or we could be headed for trouble.
Every conservative since the end of WWII has claimed that liberals want to turn America into a Communist state.
Don’t forget - in 2016, thirty years of propaganda and bullshit about Hillary Clinton gave us Donald Trump. And a fair number of the people who voted third party, or sat out the election were liberals who were spouting the same crap the right was. I lost count of how many supposedly liberal men said they wouldn’t vote for her because they’d swallowed the right wing line on her.
And sadly younger women said it too, one told me Hillary had nothing to offer them. (she was sucked in, by all the empty "Bernie bribes" that he could have never delivered.) I was speechless, having followed her career for thirty years.
This issue is not about babies, it is about women who have sex. Men are supposed to have strong, natural, healthy sexual urges. Women on the other hand are not supposed to enjoy sex. So if they have sex for any reason other than reproduction, they are sinful and should be punished. And what better punishment than to force them to have a baby?”
What's more enraging is when I bring up the type of people this is forcing to have babies like the homeless, drug addicts, mentally ill, domestic violence victims. They truly do not give a flying fuck. Children and babies are literally a justice system to them. Wanted to write a book—or at least an article—about it called the Curse of Eve Doctrine: When Motherhood Is A Justice System. It's inspired by the Curse of Ham doctrine the Church used to justify the enslavement of Black people except for women.
Laura, you’ve mentioned this project before, and I hope you write it. So many on the left do not believe there are millions of Americans who build their entire worldview around the literal interpretation of Adam and Eve. My husband didn’t think anyone believed it until he met me, and he only recently grasped what it means (which led to the article I wrote in Salon.) Your book is necessary. It won’t change the true believers, but it might help more people outside of their camp comprehend what they’re dealing with.
I just read that the fundamentalist cult called ‘The Family’ (Netflix documentary on my list) was previously called ‘Children of God’. Fundamentalists deeply involved in policy at all levels and incognito. Bring this up and you sound like a conspiracy theorist.
Thanks Andra. That's encouraging. I just read your article. It was excellent. Much on the topic I'd like to write about. I wrote 20,000 words and all of it is a hot mess. The project is overwhelming not having any experience and I have to go back to school, probably next year. Maybe that will help. I looked you up online and noticed you do writing workshops. I might sign up for one someday.
Since you're alluding to the serpent 🐍. . .. Plus this might cheer you up. Some male pervs, mostly from Asia have developed a hankering to put live snakes up their butts. ⛩
I’m attending the Texas Tribune ‘Tribfest’ and Jessica’s name and this blog were mentioned by Rebecca Traister as an essential resource to an auditorium full of pro-choice activists, which will likely result in a spike in subscribers.
I never forgave him for dismissing reproductive rights as "Identity Politics." It is not "Identity Politics if it is your daily experiences. IIRC, he suggested throwing us women under the bus, maybe down the road, he'd consider us, just so we could get anti-abortion types on board. As if!
“Yes, Republicans are relying on bullshit and scare tactics to distract from the truth. But we should still be able to talk about why abortion later in pregnancy is necessary!”
💯 I want to see Dems get ANGRY about this. I get the whole “they go low, we go high” deal, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be loud or enraged or use impolite language. Start citing the harm and do it loudly. That Ohio ad was a great start. They don’t care if you get sepsis or have organ failure or die. They don’t care if you have to birth a doomed pregnancy. They don’t care about your life or your family or your friends. Get pissed and show it and the media will cover it.
They don’t care if two people will die and doing an abortion will save one of them. And if they don’t know that, we need to tell them. But I think they are playing dumb.
Yes and I think we need to call them out on that. Repeatedly. They keep getting off easy.
I am honestly still unsure of how to respond to the viability question. Jessica, You are suggesting to say "yes, late pregnancy abortion happens. It's rare but it's needed"?
I am mindful of the article I read about how the big repro justice groups are not in agreement on whether or not to allow "viability" in referenda language (knowing that it is a meaningless not evidence-based standard) .this is really hurting us.
There are only a handful of providers in the country that provide third trimester abortions - I’m aware of only three - and they are very costly - $10,000 or more. Traveling across the country for a difficult procedure that is extremely expensive is clearly not something that anyone does on a whim. When discussing third trimester abortion, it cannot be assumed that voters are aware of this. Most people seem to think that third trimester procedures are performed by all abortion providers, and that the financial cost is no different than the cost of a medication or surgical abortion in the early weeks of a pregnancy.
Wow!
Viability standards are a red herring like the "when does life begin" question. When we buy into either debate, we have already ceded ground on the question of whether abortion requires any regulation at all. Seems like the Republicans believe the government should regulate only one thing (not corporations, guns, campaign spending, drug safety, environmental protection, and so on) and that is women's bodies.
What's insulting is they make it sound like women get later abortions on a whim when they're always very wanted pregnancies that have gone horribly wrong. Even when they are a threat to a woman's life, doctors will always do everything they can to save the baby. It's so insulting.
Perfect, Metis.
I always point out that less than 1% of abortions are after twenty weeks and all of them are for severe fetal abnormalities/incompatibility with life. If a pregnancy is a threat to a woman's life, they do everything they can to save an infant if it's at the point of viability around 24 weeks when they can get care in a NICU which is why they're so rare to nonexistent after this point.
Laura,
Pointing out that there are only a handful of third trimester abortion providers in the country, that the procedure costs $10,000, and takes several days, has had an impact on some people I’ve talked to about this.
Right, now how to fit all that on a bumper sticker? 🙃
How about “Exceptions require bureaucratic approval & access / therefore there are no exceptions / legalize abortion”. Dang, still too long. “Keep your doctor out of jail”. Nope no good. There actually hasn’t been any access in my state for a long time. And interestingly, we are sitting on a huge pile of money given by feds for COVID, welfare, etc., that the state is just holding, or spending, who knows, but poor people who qualify and apply for it aren’t getting it. My cousin in another red state can’t drink her water because of a nearby mine.
My state also proudly turned down a quiet offer from the state hospital association to pay the federal portion of Medicaid expansion after the feds’ obligation because they knew otherwise most of the hospitals wouldn’t make it. And now we have the highest rate of hospital closure in the nation last I looked and we are one of those areas with overlapping maternal and abortion deserts. And the part about the hospital association was not reported in the media. I find the fact that people are so fixated on making women carry babies that cannot live while we are literally killing all other living creatures on the planet just mind boggling. Lots of interesting priorities. Like volleyball stadiums instead of food for impoverished. Wayy off topic.
Lol (not): my red state too. It's like a game of Oppression Olympics. I do think the phrase i"pregnancy is too complicated to be legislated" might be as good as we are going to get. It will make people think of the stories they've read about.
I think the best one that's come up is 'Pregnancy is too complicated to legislate'. If there's a weakness to that it's that it might sound like a cop out, and I can hear Republicans saying Democrats legislate everything else. It's important to have stories of real people's pregnancies to go to when you have to explain this argument, and you need lots of them; you don't want to keep going to the same one.
How about “doctors will avoid prison & ignore exceptions-legalize abortion.” There is no such thing as exception.
Years ago my husband as a pathologist had administrators calling him trying to weasel out info about miscarriage remains that was being tested for genetic disease-was it ACTUALLY an abortion? When it was legal here. Wth business was it of theirs? MDs have been terrorized. Just like after all the pill mills were closed, SWAT teams started showing up in hospice offices and seizing assets to prevent hiring effective defense and basing sentences on weights of pills that are mostly filler and acetaminophen like they were uncut cocaine. Out of control. I have lots of problems with medicine, but threatening people for doing their job and/or forcing them to leave people to suffer is wrong.
Meh. I just troll anti-abortionists in comment sections.
😉I do too, in the form of "this is reality I worked doing surgical procedures and everything you said about abortion is a lie."
“Without the exceptions, it is very difficult to win the elections. We would probably lose the majorities in 2024 without the exceptions, and perhaps the presidency itself.”---Donald Trump
Once again, he says the quiet part out loud. While growing up, every school morning I took a pledge to our nation for liberty and justice for all. We talk about justice, but we don't talk about how we evaluate whether or not something is just. Donald Trump shows us that the real objective is to win, not to seek justice for the American people. It is a simple question, "Is it just to require a child to carry and deliver the seed of her rapist, risking her own health and future?" Is that justice? Or is it aiding and abetting after the fact? Trump doesn't care. It has never and will never concern him because it has never and will never happen TO HIM. I know that exceptions aren't real, but when they don't even really matter because their goal isn't "justice for all", then we can point to this and say, ALL means only certain people. This is, and always has been, about power.
It’s justice if, way down deep, you think that girls/women should be punished for having sex - even if the sex wasn’t their choice, they are now “damaged goods.” Most of these people still believe the hymen mythology, and consider it a “freshness seal.” Once you remove a freshness seal, well, the product is spoiled. If she was raped, she clearly wasn’t wasn’t taking proper precautions to protect her freshness seal.
One time in adult Sunday School the lesson was about women in the church's history who martyred themselves for their virginity. These women are venerated throughout church history for choosing death over rape. I remember slowly having a reverse "come to Jesus" moment and realizing what utter crap it is to value a woman's chastity over her very life.
Precisely. Now, politicians want to make martyring yourself for a pregnancy “the right thing to do,” if not making it the actual law.
What human culture has damned of women over the last 8-10,000 years is monstrous - and it hasn’t stopped.
Demanded, not damned. It’s been a long day
I love freshness seal
Another commercial, right there
I'm a Virginia resident and finally got my first anti-choice ad today while playing a game on my phone. It was the most shoddily put together, out-of-context bullshit and where they basically accuse Democrats of, you know, infanticide if they maintain control of the house. Excited to vote as per usual - if you're a resident, early voting started today!
I say don’t get tangled up in “viability” or “until birth.” The ad with the girl in a hospital bed, surrounded by her dad, a doc and a GOP legislator is a shot between the eyes. Keep it simple.
That one certainly nails it! I like the one with the republican congressman in the bedroom with the couple, telling them he is in their bedroom to stay. Always good to make a clear point.
Yep. I also picture the lawmakers, or maybe the six right-wing SCOTUS justices all shrunk down and living in the woman's uterus. There's a little 'Property of GOP' flag planted there like it was the moon landing.
That is brilliant!
"In front of the courthouse today, ADF attorney Kevin Theriot tried to redefine abortion:
“Where you have to go in and take the baby to save the life of the mother, they don’t see that as an abortion because there’s a different intent. The doctor isn’t intending to kill the child. The child dies in an attempt to save the mother.”
For months, I’ve been warning about conservatives’ attempts to change the fundamental legal and medical definition of abortion—they are getting it out there in suits, in the media, and in legislation. Make sure to keep an out for more bullshit like this."
The above is standard Catholic moral theology. For example, in the end-of-life area, if you give someone a heavy dose of morphine (enough to kill them) it is considered ok if your intent is to ease their pain, rather than to kill them. To me it just illustrates that abortion bans are really imposing on society as whole the specific moral theological views of Catholicism. There is supposed to be separation of church and state, and abortion bans violate that basic Constitutional principle.
Medical practitioners won’t agree on when abortion is “necessary” to save a mother and they don’t want anything to do with risk when legality is involved. What is the definition of serious harm? They will minimize risk of harm to stay away from these cases. Removing any fetal tissue is medically abortion. I agree that once you are in the weeds, anti-abortionists have a chance to win. Legalize it all. And publicize how little late term is used and the circumstances.
Oh and no kidding, the give morphine to ease pain at death and who cares if they die a little sooner has now become let’s not addict them, and if people die with an opioid in their system it could be an overdose-let’s give Narcan so they can be good and awake at the end. It’s shockingly punitive and personally I believe it’s also about religion-you’re being punished if you’re experiencing pain, you deserve it, you should learn to endure it, etc.
Years ago, my uncle died of cancer. It was everywhere in his body at that point, pain was overwhelming. He was terminal, and he was never going to leave the hospital at that point.
They refused to give him morphine, because they were afraid that he’d become addicted.
That is nauseating.
Enraging.
I agree with you AND I think taking the baby to save the life of the mother is a more accurate framing of a number of cases. I don’t know how this could be used as an argument against abortion. Perhaps I’m missing something. Should we let toddlers kill moms too? Anybody else? Open season? Maybe a limited season like deer season? (Sorry I went a little Jonathan Swift-potato famine-let the Irish eat their babies kind of sardonic humor there).
Related note: if fetuses are persons, are they committing murder if mom dies? Are we stopping a murder by fetus in saving mom? Why is mom’s life worth less than fetus? I would like this explained by pro-life movement.
If the fetus is at 24 weeks, the solution is birth if it's threatening a woman's life. It's why it's a red herring.
Although this assumes the fetus is normal. There are certainly situations where the mother’s life is threatened by an abnormal fetus at 24 weeks. I guess I see what you mean now-why bother focusing on the viability point? I mean it’s A thing, but it’s not THE thing.
That's why I like to quote Father Austin Fagothey who wrote Right and Reason. This Catholic priest was deeply respected and lauded. He wrote that every right carries associated responsibilities. If a fetus has rights, then what are the associated responsibilities of the fetus and how does the fetus intend to carry out those associated responsibilities? If the woman has the responsibility to carry the fetus, what are her associated rights to that heavy responsibility? These should be rights that non-pregnant people do not also have. I have yet to hear an answer to these questions.
Is it supposed to work both ways then? Rights yield responsibilities but responsibilities also yield rights? Because to me that's certainly an argument for giving women the greater powers in society. One thing Catholics are particularly and perhaps uniquely known for is veneration of Mary, but from that they come to the exact opposite conclusion from mine on the role of women. In a way I feel like they're SO close, but their wrong answer, women only valuable for martyr's sacrifice as mothers, has been discussed a lot here.
Since it’s an ethical issue balancing rights and responsibilities, I would argue that it would be unethical to impose responsibilities on someone while withholding any associated rights. I can’t remember if this point was made. It’s not like the “all squares are rectangles but all rectangles aren’t squares “ argument. I’m curious if you can think of a responsibility that citizens are given that DOES NOT entail any associated rights. I couldn’t.
I don't think so, but I suppose someone could stretch the meaning of responsibility or right to come up with something.
So much of the religious/Catholic thinking implicitly excludes women as full moral beings, which is necessary to justify an all-male power structure. Unless the writing explicitly references women I would (cynically) assume it precludes any interpretation beneficial to us. I did have a little chuckle at the apparent rift between US Catholic leaders and the actual Pope: https://www.newsweek.com/ex-priest-breaks-pope-criticism-american-catholic-politics-1822925
Catholics are so good at mental gymnastics, it would be hilarious if it weren't dictating access to my own body.
Yes. They always claim that everything they believe can be arrived at by reason. It makes them particularly dangerous in the legal field.
They've had millennia to hone their effluent.
Yes. The Catholic church and the evangelicals are an alliance made in hell. The evangelicals provide the foot soldiers, the attitude, the fundamentalist approach to everything, but they're far too stupid to craft policy and laws; it takes a different kind of evil for that and that's where the Catholics come in. (Disclosure: I come from a Catholic family.)
The doublethink is astonishing, isn't it?
Well abortion is always an intent to save the woman, no matter what the circumstances, so in my view there's no difference.
Roe was never enough. While it did guarantee that abortion cannot be stopped completely, it also allowed states to impose all kinds of ridiculous waiting periods, pelvic exams, etc. What we really need is a constitutional amendment that makes it impossible for government to play any role in the decision that should be left to the woman.
Robert,
Roe really didn’t open the doors for those limitations. That didn’t start happening until the Casey decision in 1992. At the time, many on the prochoice side were relieved that SCOTUS hadn’t outright overturned Roe. I was pissed, because I could see it leading to all the regulations and limits we saw from then on - all of which, of course, led to the Dobbs decision.
Pass the fucking ERA!!!
It’s been passed by the requisite number of states, it just took too long, but I think it’s in the hands of the Parliamentarian now, and that person needs to be flooded with letters.
🎯Sadly, Roe was a compromise.
Roe was a compromise, but it was really the Planned Parenthood v Casey decision in 1992, IMO, that really ensured that Roe would eventually be overturned. Had they left Roe alone, most prochoice people could have lived with it, because it did allow for third trimester procedures when necessary for the life, or health - including mental health - of the pregnant person. Notice that current “exceptions” are either specifically written as relating to physical health, or written to specifically exclude mental health.
What really changed with Casey was the insertion of the “undue burden” concept. Under Roe, the state couldn’t restrict a woman’s right at all in the first trimester. There was a strict scrutiny standard of review. But Casey substituted the undue burden standard, under which abortion restrictions would be unconstitutional when they were enacted for "the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus." If a state could reasonably claim the regulation wasn’t trying to deliberately put a big obstacle in her way, if it didn’t unduly burden her right to abortion, then the regulation could pass muster in the courts.
So shit like waiting periods, ultrasounds, state mandated information, etc. were argued not to unduly burden her. They were just trying to make sure the pregnant person was fully informed, and had time to think about whether or not they *really* wanted an abortion after they had all that information. The state was really just trying to help, you see?
Casey was the beginning of the end for Roe.
Interesting, I had not considered that point.
Natalie, if you’ve never read the Casey decision, it’s worth doing. At the time it was published, pre-widespread internet, it was harder to get your hands on a copy of the actual decision, but I went out of my way to find and read it. While a lot of prochoice people were rejoicing that SCOTUS hadn’t taken thr opportunity to overturn Roe entirely, after reading it, I was tearing my hair out.
It was abundantly clear that with the Casey decision, and the insertion of the undue burden standard, SCOTUS had opened Pandora’s Box, but I didn’t see hope left in the bottom like Pandora did. All I saw was a diminishing of the rights as they were declared under Roe.
Casey left the right to abortion in place, but it gave states the ability to restrict access. If you could find a judge to agree that whatever screwy regulation they wanted to pass didn’t “unduly burden” the woman, that regulation was golden. It’s such a vague phrase, like the vague wordings being used in exceptions to abortion bans.
Who the hell knows what unduly burdens a person who is seeking an abortion? A regulation that a judge says passes muster can be a regulation that prevents a specific person from getting an abortion at all.
If you’re interested, the syllabus, and the decision can be found here: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/505/833/
Thank you!
This time I don’t want ANY compromises and no restrictions. It’s healthcare.
If there are compromises or restrictions and exceptions, they will find a way to 100% screw it up.
As a former Surgical Assistant, I could not agree more.
The problem was the interpretation; judges (and legislatures) kept chipping away. Any law, any constitution, is only as good as the officials enforcing it. There's a limit to how much the law can protect you when 47% of the voters are evil. Unfortunately the only thing that solves the problem is for those people to disappear from the face of the earth.
The thing about Donald Trump is he's already BEEN president. When you break something you don't get to say you're fixing it. That's Politics 101, and it applies to plenty of issues besides abortion, and if the Biden campaign can't handle that god help us all.
That’s another commercial right there
Adam Serwer’s article in The Atlantic (which Jessica quoted here the other day) is the perfect ad. Every one of his statements in the paragraph she cited can be illustrated with real people.
I was very fond of that quote, and yes, you're right. So of course they won't do it 🤦 I have to be at least somewhat concerned that if Joe Biden was any good at running for president, he'd have won a long time ago. And the covid campaign was different. Personally I'm fine with the guy and I think he's done a good job considering, but that seems to be a minority viewpoint. From what I read this campaign might have to be like Weekend at Bernie's.
Joe Biden is an old-school politician who doesn’t like the attack-dog style, which is the only thing our completely fucked system and electorate seems to equate with strength. I could say many negative things about him, but the mainstream media seems thrilled to do that job.
So I’ll say he has been a stellar president. He is the only person I can imagine dealing with Russia and Ukraine. He has worked for more economic benefits for more Americans and more green energy than other recent presidents. He is (finally, belatedly) starting to hammer anti-abortion. And we must stop focusing on the negative and enthusiastically support him. This focus on the negative and ‘I’m mad that he didn’t do x about my issue’ when he has, in the aggregate, accomplished so much are why democrats don’t win in landslides. We have got to unite behind our person and stop getting in our own way.
Andra,
Absolutely on target. Stop criticizing Biden! As he has said himself, don’t compare him to the almighty, compare him to the alternative. Next to anyone on the Republican side, Biden is a radical progressive. Actually, come to think of it, he *is* the most progressive president in my lifetime.
Most of the campaign promises Biden hasn’t accomplished - it hasn’t been for lack of trying. You can’t lay the failure of student loan forgiveness at his feet. He tried.
Yes, he’s elderly, and no, he isn’t comfortable with the kind of dishonesty and aggression that Republicans use. But he’s been around a very long time, and his institutional knowledge is very deep - if there *is* a way to get something done, and not have it reversed at the first chance Republicans get, he does it.
I’ve actually been surprised at how much he has accomplished.
I think a big part of that is, as you say, the negative press, when there are many accomplishments that should be touted, they hammer on some stupid comment made by a republican (in bad faith, but that goes without saying). I think it would kill WaPo, or the NYT to say anything positive.
I agree on Biden as president. His campaign ability worries me; I don't want him to get in his own way, to borrow your phrase. To your first sentence, I think the problem is a little different from that. It's not that attacking is strength necessarily, but that voters are far more motivated by anger at and fear of the other side than they are by anything they like about their own side. Democrats cannot get enough votes to win just from people who approve of Democrats; rather they need to get everybody who has misgivings about Republicans. The calculation on the other side is mostly the same, which is why I often ponder, what makes Democrats so threatening to people? Anyway, I'm pretty sure that 're-elect Biden, he's done a good job' is a losing campaign (not saying that's what you were suggesting!) I hope his campaign team understands that even if the candidate is reluctant, or we could be headed for trouble.
“what makes Democrats so threatening to people?”
Every conservative since the end of WWII has claimed that liberals want to turn America into a Communist state.
Don’t forget - in 2016, thirty years of propaganda and bullshit about Hillary Clinton gave us Donald Trump. And a fair number of the people who voted third party, or sat out the election were liberals who were spouting the same crap the right was. I lost count of how many supposedly liberal men said they wouldn’t vote for her because they’d swallowed the right wing line on her.
I heard that and suspected it was actually because she was a woman.
And sadly younger women said it too, one told me Hillary had nothing to offer them. (she was sucked in, by all the empty "Bernie bribes" that he could have never delivered.) I was speechless, having followed her career for thirty years.
Well, yes, I just meant why it's so much worse now. Idk whether it's all them or whether we inadvertently play into their hand sometimes.
What pissed me off most in today's read.
This issue is not about babies, it is about women who have sex. Men are supposed to have strong, natural, healthy sexual urges. Women on the other hand are not supposed to enjoy sex. So if they have sex for any reason other than reproduction, they are sinful and should be punished. And what better punishment than to force them to have a baby?”
Every time I read this theocratic garbage, I want to scream. It’s straight from “Eve tempted Adam” and I deplore it.
What's more enraging is when I bring up the type of people this is forcing to have babies like the homeless, drug addicts, mentally ill, domestic violence victims. They truly do not give a flying fuck. Children and babies are literally a justice system to them. Wanted to write a book—or at least an article—about it called the Curse of Eve Doctrine: When Motherhood Is A Justice System. It's inspired by the Curse of Ham doctrine the Church used to justify the enslavement of Black people except for women.
Laura, you’ve mentioned this project before, and I hope you write it. So many on the left do not believe there are millions of Americans who build their entire worldview around the literal interpretation of Adam and Eve. My husband didn’t think anyone believed it until he met me, and he only recently grasped what it means (which led to the article I wrote in Salon.) Your book is necessary. It won’t change the true believers, but it might help more people outside of their camp comprehend what they’re dealing with.
Your comment reminds me of the Duggar documentary/expose "Shiny Happy People." It helped raise awareness of how destructive it all is.
I must read your article-thanks!
I just read that the fundamentalist cult called ‘The Family’ (Netflix documentary on my list) was previously called ‘Children of God’. Fundamentalists deeply involved in policy at all levels and incognito. Bring this up and you sound like a conspiracy theorist.
Thanks Andra. That's encouraging. I just read your article. It was excellent. Much on the topic I'd like to write about. I wrote 20,000 words and all of it is a hot mess. The project is overwhelming not having any experience and I have to go back to school, probably next year. Maybe that will help. I looked you up online and noticed you do writing workshops. I might sign up for one someday.
I would read the hell out of that! It needs said, over and over again.
It's an overwhelming project not having any experience Planning to go back to school for it next year. See how it goes.
Please just write it now. Then second edition after school!
I tried. It's just terrible. I'd like to hire a cowriter but I don't have the money for that.
Since you're alluding to the serpent 🐍. . .. Plus this might cheer you up. Some male pervs, mostly from Asia have developed a hankering to put live snakes up their butts. ⛩
I’m attending the Texas Tribune ‘Tribfest’ and Jessica’s name and this blog were mentioned by Rebecca Traister as an essential resource to an auditorium full of pro-choice activists, which will likely result in a spike in subscribers.
I take it no lesbians were involved in the choice of name...🤣😂🤣
Very cool you got to be there in person!
I did. Great panel. Now how to do a better job in this state harnessing the anger over our state’s mierda.
You just taught me a word-thanks.
Note to self: read entire post before commenting.
😊