34 Comments

How can we get these messages out on msm, to those who are oblivious to the truth about abortion care. I'm tired of hearing " They kill babies"

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Antiabortionists are anti-women. They think that the main purpose of a woman is to be a mother. If a woman doesn’t want to be a mother who is willing to die for her children, then that woman is defective. Can you imagine that script being used on a man?

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Scotus allowing ID’s extremist abortion to go into effect while it makes its way through the court tells us everything we need to know about how they’ll rule in the TX case.

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Forcing women to carry fetuses that are incompatible with life to term directly affects me as a labor and delivery nurse. I am going to have to attend the birth of their doomed pregnancies. I am going to have to endure the sadness and cruelty while trying to support a grieving family. Yes, I sound selfish here, but it is a trickle-down situation that puts so many more people into this unnecessary situation.

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This is such an incredibly important point that I had never even considered!

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One of the great ironies in this is that the Catholic Church does allow abortions under particular circumstances. A friend’s daughter had her cancer recur while she was pregnant. She was not far enough along to induce labour. She needed to begin chemo immediately. Their priest told the family that she had a son and a husband who needed her. The decision was agonising. What the Catholic Church knows is that there are no absolutes. There are exceptions to everything. That is what these fanatics refuse to see.

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There is also the issue of elective abortions in the case of any kind of birth defect, non viable or not. Why should parents have to give birth to a baby with birth defects?

This goes way back to the "partial birth" abortions where hydrocephalic pregnancies were terminated at birth to protect the reproductive health -- "fertility" -- of the woman.

It also goes back to the lie that Sanger was a eugenicist based on the falsehood the screening for birth defects was practicing eugenics.

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I just have to wonder if there are financial interests at play with these "perinatal" centers. How long after "congratulations" are people expected to make payments to these ghouls? Are there well-known GOP investors - Vivek Ramaswamy maybe? Is private equity involved in this burgeoning market?

On July 13, 2022, Erin Morrow Hawley, wife of insurrectionist Josh Hawley testified before the House Reform and Oversight Committee and stated that miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy treatment is not abortion. (Spoiler - Hawley had a miscarriage.) I was listening and my head snapped up. At that moment I didn't know who she was married to, nor that she was a lawyer for Alliance Defending Freedom. Her lies throughout the hearing amount to foreshadowing Jessica' blog. My Representative, Ayanna Pressley called her out on the question of an ectopic pregnancy and defended mifepristone as well. 💖

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5023563/user-clip-rep-pressley-argues-ms-hawley-condemned-rep-comer

It's worth watching if you have the stomach for the GOP insisting women are in favor of infanticide @2:33:20 There's good push back from 3 of the panel members.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?521623-1/state-lawmakers-testify-abortion-access-law

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Well, women are YET AGAIN going to get screwed by SCOTUS - they are taking up the Idaho case and have already reinstated the law. Barrett should effing hang her head in shame! She is a traitor to her sex. If we survive as a country, her legacy and that of the Roberts court will be some of the worst in history- right up there with Dred Scot, Plessy, and Korematsu. I swear, I have never felt such unaltered RAGE at people.

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Me too, I just feel like I am internally screaming, every time I read anything about each little thing these self righteous A-holes are doing. I honestly want to hurt those damned scotus justices. I love to be able to spit in ACB’s face!

I hate her & the other 5 with her

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Back in the day, in the run-up to the Iraqi invasion, lots of Americans knew Bush/Cheney were lying to us about WMD, but there wasn’t a damn thing we could do to stop the war machine once it started. I took my 9yo daughter to an anti-war protest, organized by Code PInk: Women for Peace. Our protest was disrupted by anti-abortion fanatics carrying giant posters of dead babies—it was gross! We left because I didn’t want my daughter exposed to that, but it gave me a taste of how they’ll stop at nothing.

Fast forward to today. Should we fight back by showing gruesome pictures of what these policies result in? Does Vivek Ramaswamy need to see a baby born with no skull to realize “um, no, this is not a child, this is a horrible aberration of nature”. None of us want to resort to tactics like this, of course not! It’s disgusting, and we don’t want families that have suffered enough already to be put in the spotlight.

But I’ll be damned if I’m going to let my daughters’ generation and my granddaughters’ generation turned into breeding machines for the “christians”.

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Your protest experience reminds me of this exchange between Chelsea Clinton and a SC Republican legislator who was taking a victory lap for stopping total abortion ban in her state. Starts @49:00. Chelsea as usual was masterful to call out that lecturing SC legislator. The whole video is worth watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjGoZui9p-g

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Doctors like that evil hag should lose their medical license. And what makes people like her even worse is presumably they passed medical school, where in anatomy they would have learned actual reproductive biology. So they're not ignorant. They are actively CHOOSING lies and cruelty. I don't believe in hell, but sometimes I sure wish I did, because the people who would make women slaves to their fetuses deserve eternal damnation.

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"Congratulations! -- she should be "terminated."

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Some days you just wish a mystery virus would come along and sterilize the entire human race. We've had our run; enough is enough.

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Very little is more mind-boggling to me than the fact that they see the rise in infant mortality as a good thing. There is nothing rational or ethical or moral about these people. Cruel zealots.

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Agreed! It is a belief system the attached article outlines how disappointed the pro-lifers were that Kate Cox left the state.

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Boo hoo. Trisomy 13 is real and kills moms too. They need to talk to legitimate doctors. Kate is a hero 👏 🙌 ❤.

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I started reading this Jessica and I had to get my mouth guard. I have TMJ. Did my best to maintain control. Jaw tightened up. I agree with Andra the women/pregnancy issue and the resulting cruelty is a mere stepping stone to obtain world order in their religious belief systems. I grew up catholic and know how much money the Catholic church has. Very well funded. And how guilt and maintaining the status quo is drilled into your head. They are allied with the catholic church and its so obvious to me why they did that.

You are correct Andra, they are just like the Taliban and what's so scary is they don't see it that way. And it is a belief system. I personally believe that many of them don't think they are doing anything wrong because it is God's will. No curiosity, no questioning no free thinking. It is perverse.

I don't recall what the faith philosophy is called but if you have a child that has cancer then it is representative of something you did or didn't do in your life and your the reason the child has this and you and the child is suffering. Same for "doomed" pregnancy. The extremist are also using the religious fanatics to help with their position as well. They just want control of the government so they can do away with what they don't like.

I remind myself that there are more of us than of them. Stay calm and learn from each other.

This is serious and it is right before our noses.

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I grew up in a catholic church myself. The catholic church does nothing but lay guilt on people but especially women!

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They believe that God judges people for hidden sin with trials like a child with cancer, a miscarriage, infertility, or personal illness. When I was diagnosed with my chronic parasitic disease, my parents told me God was trying to get my attention, and they were praying for me. THAT is the “support” they offered as I lost part of my eyesight, endured 2 rounds of extremely toxic chemo, and rode the emotional and mental roller coaster of steroids.

They lack empathy because they are taught God is punishing “secret sinners,” and these trials reveal who these “secret sinners” are.

They are conditioned to never question the leader. They answer every argument that makes them think with “The Bible says” or “God is the final authority” and similar thought terminating statements. These are taught from their pulpits.

I don’t think many Americans grasp how radicalizing this is. How many of our fellow citizens are as radicalized as those who strap bombs to their bodies and blow up public spaces for God. They are hopeless. There is no point engaging with them. But we must convince enough other Americans of this threat to beat them this year. We do not want to live in the country they envision.

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Andra, it’s me again 😂. But I really think your experiences inside the church and that insider perspective could reach people on the other political side and change minds!

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If people are still in that world, they are fully radicalized people. They have been given multiple off-ramps to say, "This isn't what Jesus would do," and they have refused them. I understand what it means to walk away from a cult-like group: You lose life-long relationships; you are demonized and judged; you forfeit a substantial support structure. I don't hope to reach any of those people (and if you've ever tried to talk to any of them, you quickly grasped what a waste of effort it is.) I hope this reaches people who don't normally vote, independent voters or people who are wavering on their support for Democrats because of "Biden's age" or the conflict in Israel/Gaza, etc. I also hope it helps other liberal writers improve their own reporting.

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I’m in central Arkansas and Southern Baptists rule. But I am a lecturer at a college, so I at least have my liberal bubble even if it’s small. Mostly I try to improve students’ critical thinking skills, but so often I find myself playing the role of mom to traumatized young women because their real moms are only capable of handing their own trauma to their daughters. So, so often the church is at the center of their stories. 😭

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I’m sending loving kindness to you Andra. I experienced something similar and words cannot express the trauma and neglect one is subjected to while in the midst of those vulnerable situations. I have a seizure disorder due to not being treated for worms as a child. Grateful today it is under control and the people I’m close to are loving and caring. ❤️

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Well said 👍❤️

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Happy Friday!! :-\

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I’m going to paint a slightly different but related picture here, because I continue to struggle with the notion that enough Americans care about cruelty.

In the 1970s, I attended a Christian nationalist church and school. Bob Jones University had their tax-exempt status revoked by the IRS for refusing to admit Black people, and churches like mine were whipped into a froth over what that meant for our ability to be Christians. Week after week, I was made to feel like liberals were out to jail and torture me at any moment.

The right couldn’t say they were against these policies because of their racism, so they lit upon abortion as a motivating issue. They made an alliance with Catholics who forbade abortion and birth control, they dug in and worked for over 50 years, and here we are.

Yes, this is cruelty. It absolutely is. But it is also religious fascism. They are forcing their religious views about when life begins, a woman’s role in society and in marriage (submissive; in the home having and rearing children), and how her job is to suffer because Eve ate the fruit first and tempted Adam to fall, and they are systematically forcing everyone to live by their religious dogma. They are not unlike the Taliban, and their goals are just as ambitious.

If they succeed in this year’s election, they will dismantle all welfare and make it all religious-based, with taxpayer dollars funding it fully and users required to meet religious benchmarks to qualify. (The General Welfare section of Project 2025 is the biggest one for a reason.)

If feminist writers don’t start pointing this out and making people more aware of it (and believe me, I’m getting ready to try but I don’t have the platform you do), we are squandering another real messaging point that may motivate people to vote blue. Their religious dogma is inextricable from their world view, and they intend to force us all to live by it.

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Coming back to add that I am not painting all people of faith with this brush. There are many people of faith here who are not this. Were I to use my Evangelicalese, I would call far-right Christian nationalists “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” though I have no real right to judge the sincerity of their faith or the state of their souls. Over the coming months, it will be up to many brave people of faith to repudiate Christian nationalists and to show Americans the difference between what Jesus taught and their abusive dogma.

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Andra, I hope you reach as many people as possible. Are you thinking of starting a Substack? I will subscribe and repost every one of your posts. I started an abortion Substack, (Pirouette Politics) even though I feel most people can do it better than me, because if I reach one person, if I change one mind, if I cause just one person to vote for politicians who support abortion rights, then color me happy. Basically whatever you plan to do on whatever platform, invite me or somehow let me know, and I will do everything I can to support you and spread your message.

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You should be able to subscribe to my Substack next to my name and avatar here. I'll post a link here (with Jessica's permission) when it's live.

And thank you for your enthusiasm. Project 2025 becomes more and more alarming as I read, and our media is not covering it. There are abortion-related things in it that Jessica hasn't covered here. They are very specific and detailed about what they will do and how.

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Agreed. I am helping my church promote reproductive freedom and hopefully our congregation will vote to become one that helps de stigmatize abortion extremism here in Texas. A tall order.

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Wonderful! When I’m feeling hopeless, I come here, because it reminds me I’m not alone and that many of us are doing everything we can to counter extremism.

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