Here's what's going down at the NC state house today: the abortion bill has dropped. If you want to read the text of Senate 20, it's at https://ncleg.gov/BillLookup/2023/s20
An earlier version of S20 about safe surrender of infants was gutted to make this new monster.
Among other things, the bill defines an unborn child as a human being in the womb, so it shouldn't mean at conception, but who knows?
It totally bans access after 24 weeks regardless of rape, incest, health of mother or fetus.
It requires new clinic restrictions that will put Planned Parenthood out of the business.
It's all wrapped in the sweeteners of parental leave, access to contraception, etc.
We know how today's vote will go. We must double down on our efforts to sustain the governor's expected veto. The next week's will be busy.
Thanks so much for covering all of this shit across the country.
It was a great week for progressives - Chicago, WI, the national furor over what's happening in TN - politicians, are you paying attention to reality? Michele Goldberg has piece in the NYT-https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/07/opinion/abortion-rights-wisconsin-elections-republicans.html?smid=url-share
Tennessee demonstrates not just racism, but also misogyny.
*Brewer, however, said he believed giving doctors that kind of power would be too subjective. “Once one doctor is let off the hook in a criminal trial, it would be open season for other doctors who wanted to perform bad faith terminations,” he said.*
Bad faith terminations? WTF? Can't compromise with terrorists.
I sometimes wonder if one problem with conservatives is they assume everyone else is like them - lying, cheating, selfish, cruel. When you consider the things they seem to think women and doctors are doing, it raises that question.
I think a lot of the problem we have is that voters in the 'middle' are pro-choice but still queasy about it, and that's what the anti-choicers are expert at exploiting. I mean, legal in 'most' cases, what the hell does that mean? Give me the example of the case when it shouldn't be legal. The American public is just not educated enough on pregnancy and reproductive health care (keeping it that way is a key part of anti-choice strategy), so people are encouraged to imagine that there need to be some limits rather than just trusting women and their doctors. I think we need to really work on education, and maybe this crisis and these horror stories help with that, rather than just saying we have the majority. We need those middle of the road legal in 'most' cases voters to be as firmly pro-choice as we are, and as pissed off about it as we are, because the enemy is counting on obfuscation. That's the only way they've been able to get away with this for decades. And even with that, yes we are getting a boost in elections. Imagine if -everyone- who is for 'mostly legal' knew what readers here know.
Here here! But how to proceed? How do we fix this *for good?* Not one vote for this initiative, another vote in this state for that supreme court justice, another vote that will afford our autonomy for oh, two years.....
I dream of passing something like the ERA but stronger, and tying unfettered reproductive access, spelled out, to it -- stronger than Roe. They dismantled Roe, well now we can build something stronger. We need an amendment to the Constitution. We can't have state against state when it comes to basic human rights. We can't survive as a country that way. The GOP's stranglehold on these state legislatures and their gerrymandering (look at Tennessee tonight.... ) has given them power they are abusing because they are safe in their extremes, but the majority of the country doesn't want these draconian, dystopian, discriminating laws.
Also (just because I see it brought up a lot here) most of the states we're talking about vote Republican in statewide elections, so the gerrymandering isn't that big of a factor because the legislature would be dominated by conservative Republicans anyway. Gerrymandering becomes a factor when Democrats win statewide but Republicans still win a majority of districts because of the lines. Wisconsin is the best example now, Michigan was before the new commission, Pennsylvania still has the issue but it's because geography provides 'natural' gerrymandering (which tends to be true everywhere because Democrats win their areas by more than Republicans do so there are more 'wasted' votes there.) Georgia will be a prime example if Democrats could win the governor's race instead of just the federal races, and North Carolina will be a lot like Georgia if Democrats could start narrowly winning most of the statewide races there. But in Tennessee, these assholes are going to have a stranglehold on the legislature no matter what the maps look like because Tennessee is just heavily heavily Republican. Same for South Carolina and so forth.
The constitutional procedure for amending the constitution is even more arduous than all of these other structural problems. It doesn't work, because you can only amend the constitution to something that everybody and their legislatures already agree on. It's why we had to fight a war in the 1860s and impose justice that way (except we didn't follow through afterwards). Countries have thrown out their constitutions and started over. It's not a painless procedure though and these people have lots of guns.
We are hearing a lot about the real consequences of these laws, and that’s important, but I don’t understand why more people, politicians, even the medical community, aren’t making more noise to refute these ludicrous “abortion up until birth” claims. I don’t understand why these people are not getting called out for being liars.
Maybe it's like the old joke about asking a politician if he denies beating his mistress (idk the exact line but it will make the point). They're going to say it anyway, so talking about it only draws attention to the 'issue', which they've completely manufactured, and then suddenly they've won. Or don't feed the trolls is another way to put it idk. But yeah when your instinct is to be truthful and answer questions and then they use that against you, yeah, it really sucks.
That's it. Thank you! I kind of just made mine up and I think that's why I went with the mistress because it does the same thing, answering the question accepts a premise that may not be true.
BRAVO plus it is NOT about abortion. It is about disrespecting living pregnant people as human beings and subjecting them to arbitrary government control of their lives and bodies; it is about aggressive Christian evangelicals who disrespect all other religions; and, no matter what the Supremes decided it is anti democratic.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! This is the exact argument I had with my husband. For years we conceded in the hope that Roe would stand. I understand the need to find a common ground on many topics but this is not one of them.
Here's what's going down at the NC state house today: the abortion bill has dropped. If you want to read the text of Senate 20, it's at https://ncleg.gov/BillLookup/2023/s20
An earlier version of S20 about safe surrender of infants was gutted to make this new monster.
Among other things, the bill defines an unborn child as a human being in the womb, so it shouldn't mean at conception, but who knows?
It totally bans access after 24 weeks regardless of rape, incest, health of mother or fetus.
It requires new clinic restrictions that will put Planned Parenthood out of the business.
It's all wrapped in the sweeteners of parental leave, access to contraception, etc.
We know how today's vote will go. We must double down on our efforts to sustain the governor's expected veto. The next week's will be busy.
Thanks so much for covering all of this shit across the country.
Well said
Thanks. Jessica! You have successfully overcome the last remnants of my polite upbringing. Carry on! We will too.
the ol' truism: Never negotiate against yourself.
It was a great week for progressives - Chicago, WI, the national furor over what's happening in TN - politicians, are you paying attention to reality? Michele Goldberg has piece in the NYT-https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/07/opinion/abortion-rights-wisconsin-elections-republicans.html?smid=url-share
No, they aren't paying attention to reality. We need to use this to our advantage and keep pushing pro-choice legislation.
Exactly right.
Thank you
Tennessee demonstrates not just racism, but also misogyny.
*Brewer, however, said he believed giving doctors that kind of power would be too subjective. “Once one doctor is let off the hook in a criminal trial, it would be open season for other doctors who wanted to perform bad faith terminations,” he said.*
Bad faith terminations? WTF? Can't compromise with terrorists.
https://www.propublica.org/article/tennessee-lobbyists-oppose-new-life-saving-exceptions-abortion-ban?utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social
YUP
I sometimes wonder if one problem with conservatives is they assume everyone else is like them - lying, cheating, selfish, cruel. When you consider the things they seem to think women and doctors are doing, it raises that question.
I think a lot of the problem we have is that voters in the 'middle' are pro-choice but still queasy about it, and that's what the anti-choicers are expert at exploiting. I mean, legal in 'most' cases, what the hell does that mean? Give me the example of the case when it shouldn't be legal. The American public is just not educated enough on pregnancy and reproductive health care (keeping it that way is a key part of anti-choice strategy), so people are encouraged to imagine that there need to be some limits rather than just trusting women and their doctors. I think we need to really work on education, and maybe this crisis and these horror stories help with that, rather than just saying we have the majority. We need those middle of the road legal in 'most' cases voters to be as firmly pro-choice as we are, and as pissed off about it as we are, because the enemy is counting on obfuscation. That's the only way they've been able to get away with this for decades. And even with that, yes we are getting a boost in elections. Imagine if -everyone- who is for 'mostly legal' knew what readers here know.
100% Zach
Here here! But how to proceed? How do we fix this *for good?* Not one vote for this initiative, another vote in this state for that supreme court justice, another vote that will afford our autonomy for oh, two years.....
I dream of passing something like the ERA but stronger, and tying unfettered reproductive access, spelled out, to it -- stronger than Roe. They dismantled Roe, well now we can build something stronger. We need an amendment to the Constitution. We can't have state against state when it comes to basic human rights. We can't survive as a country that way. The GOP's stranglehold on these state legislatures and their gerrymandering (look at Tennessee tonight.... ) has given them power they are abusing because they are safe in their extremes, but the majority of the country doesn't want these draconian, dystopian, discriminating laws.
Also (just because I see it brought up a lot here) most of the states we're talking about vote Republican in statewide elections, so the gerrymandering isn't that big of a factor because the legislature would be dominated by conservative Republicans anyway. Gerrymandering becomes a factor when Democrats win statewide but Republicans still win a majority of districts because of the lines. Wisconsin is the best example now, Michigan was before the new commission, Pennsylvania still has the issue but it's because geography provides 'natural' gerrymandering (which tends to be true everywhere because Democrats win their areas by more than Republicans do so there are more 'wasted' votes there.) Georgia will be a prime example if Democrats could win the governor's race instead of just the federal races, and North Carolina will be a lot like Georgia if Democrats could start narrowly winning most of the statewide races there. But in Tennessee, these assholes are going to have a stranglehold on the legislature no matter what the maps look like because Tennessee is just heavily heavily Republican. Same for South Carolina and so forth.
The constitutional procedure for amending the constitution is even more arduous than all of these other structural problems. It doesn't work, because you can only amend the constitution to something that everybody and their legislatures already agree on. It's why we had to fight a war in the 1860s and impose justice that way (except we didn't follow through afterwards). Countries have thrown out their constitutions and started over. It's not a painless procedure though and these people have lots of guns.
We are hearing a lot about the real consequences of these laws, and that’s important, but I don’t understand why more people, politicians, even the medical community, aren’t making more noise to refute these ludicrous “abortion up until birth” claims. I don’t understand why these people are not getting called out for being liars.
Maybe it's like the old joke about asking a politician if he denies beating his mistress (idk the exact line but it will make the point). They're going to say it anyway, so talking about it only draws attention to the 'issue', which they've completely manufactured, and then suddenly they've won. Or don't feed the trolls is another way to put it idk. But yeah when your instinct is to be truthful and answer questions and then they use that against you, yeah, it really sucks.
Asking him when he stopped beating his wife.
That's it. Thank you! I kind of just made mine up and I think that's why I went with the mistress because it does the same thing, answering the question accepts a premise that may not be true.
BRAVO plus it is NOT about abortion. It is about disrespecting living pregnant people as human beings and subjecting them to arbitrary government control of their lives and bodies; it is about aggressive Christian evangelicals who disrespect all other religions; and, no matter what the Supremes decided it is anti democratic.
Excellent reporting. Thank you for all you do. Your endless tenacity is amazing Thanks Jessica ❤️🥰
brava you, jessica.
yes, let's get out of our "defensive crouch."
tugging the forelock ain't working. 😎
Thank you, thank you, thank you! This is the exact argument I had with my husband. For years we conceded in the hope that Roe would stand. I understand the need to find a common ground on many topics but this is not one of them.
The fetal pain argument drives me crazy. It completely erases the pain capability of the birthing mother.