I’m 54. I almost died from an ectopic pregnancy when I was 18. If I was in Florida today when it
happened (tube ruptured, hemorrhaging) I’d probably be dead. But what really makes me want to scream, in a way that I think many of my Gen Xers and older will understand, is that we WON and LOST a fundamental right in OUR LIFETIME!
It's so gross that a state agency is putting out guidelines to control doctors rather than having doctors use their experience and expertise along with their patient's input to decide the best course of action for a person's health. That is not a "standard of care." The Agency for Healthcare Administration is not protecting the health of women in Florida at all.
I love how the republicans distrust and downright despise government until they can use it to control us. And the Florida State Health Department? Are you kidding me?
As a Floridian I feel like I've been screaming into the void in outrage and the nightmare keeps getting worse. If I could find a way to turn my rage and sorrow into electricity I'm certain I could power the eastern seaboard at this point.
I currently live in Colorado and have considered moving back to Florida (where I did my higher education and raised my son for 20 years. He and many of my family still lives there). But I honestly don’t know if I could because I literally think I’d just stand in the street screaming 24/7.
We just got back from a California trip and had lunch with friends in Palm Springs. They have a company that head hunts for the medical field. SURPRISE, they are having problems finding medical professionals of all types, particularly family doctors to work in the south. They won't do it because of abortion laws but also LGBTQ laws that are on the books or are coming. The way they described it the professionals respond with a "hell no" we won't go there!
The other concerning item I see here and there why do women, I am only including adults here, have no idea about the new abortion laws where they live? I find it deeply disturbing that most of the FL women at the clinics where clueless as well as 80% of TX don't know. I know life is busy but still? Thanks for doing what you do.
I recently moved to Colorado and saw a gyno a few months after. She was kind, listened, and was very helpful. However, when I questioned her regarding abortion laws in Colorado (it was relevant. I wasn’t just quizzing her lol), she “wasn’t sure.” She works with mostly menopausal women so it doesn’t come up often, I’m sure, but I was quite shocked and a little dismayed that a gyno wouldn’t know her state’s exact laws regarding abortion, in this day and age. It made me reconsider keeping her as a gyno, tbh.
I’m in Texas. My women friends all know about these abortion laws here and are furious. It makes me almost sick to know other women in the state are just clueless about it. The apathy is what allows these laws to pass in many instances. I couldn’t believe Abbott received another term here after Dobbs. I thought maybe enough Texan women would have woken up, but apparently not. I wonder how many even voted or realized the laws had changed. I feel like some think “Oh I will never need an ‘elective’ abortion” but don’t realize how the anti-abortion movement is painting all abortions elective. If you’re not willing to risk your life or organs over your bundle of joy, then it’s ‘elective’. Something like that.
I hope most women in Texas feel as I do - how disgusting it is to force anyone to continue a pregnancy against their will. This should be a private matter, not one the state butts in on. I want to think other women in Texas are just ignorant of the laws.
Texas does have a large Hispanic population and they remain devoted to their Catholic faith (when convenient). Unfortunately, they often vote socially conservative Same problem in Florida as well. I was actually living in Mexico when they decriminalized abortion and when Roe was overturned. Sometimes I look around me and think the last four years have been some sort of fever dream I’m still living in. You know when you pinch yourself to see if you’re actually dreaming? Every day I feel like I have a new bruise because I’m pinching so hard. Please wake up! Only to realize I’m wide awake and just want to go back to sleep. Sigh. But I have to stay awake so I can fight.
Could not some medical association sue to keep politicians from telling them how to do their work? I can think of no field other than female reproduction where politicians make laws that supersede the judgement of medical professionals. I mean, it would take courage, but it ought to be possible.
This guy is Secretary of the agency, ffs; I imagine he was appointed by DeathSantis:
"Jason Weida has extensive experience working on Article III judicial nominations. In 2018, he served on a secondment to DOJ’s Office of Legal Policy (OLP) to assist in the confirmation of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to be as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. For his role, in 2019, he received the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service, DOJ’s second-highest award for employee performance. In 2019, he served on a detail to OLP, where he worked on policy initiatives and judicial nominations."
I keep wondering just who in this state health care administration is setting these standards. Are they licensed physicians? Or are they just civilians practicing medicine without a license?
Mostly the second. You’ve got MDs and public health “experts” (this is Florida) but it’s the admin part that’s actually making the decision and they may have little or no medical background. Just sycophants who will do the Right’s bidding.
Women hold no value in the bible, especially the Old Testament. These radical extremists, Christian Taliban hate us, it is our job to suffer because we brought sin into this world in the Garden of Eden. And there are plenty of women in these extreme organizations who have been indoctrinated into this as well.
And then there are others who are simply just obsessed, they have an embryo and fetus fetish (I might even call it a mental illness) ...... their fetish; as if living in a pregnant woman's womb is a 7-year-old kid that might be aborted when he should be out skateboarding instead.
It doesn't help that inaccurate pictorials of zygote/embryo/fetus progression make it look like for example a 12 week embryo is a perfectly formed miniature human when in fact that isn't at all what it looks like. Or the fake science six week heartbeat.
From a previous comment to AED by Paul Pikowsky that illustrates their Death Cult, he said it best:
"The fetus becomes the cult object, with no independent existence except in the minds of the cult. The c-section, once an emergency procedure in the interest of a woman, becomes a cult ritual, spilling the host's blood to fortify the weak convictions of the believers"
Semantics are very cunning. Ending a pregnancy is heath care for that person no matter what the circumstances. They should demonstrate compassion and evidence based solutions.
Just saying, as listed on their site, the person to contact regarding these new healthcare procedures is
Kelli Fillyaw at Agency for Health Care Administration, Division of Health Care Policy and Oversight, Bureau of Health Facility Regulation, 2727 Mahan Drive, MS# 28A, Tallahassee, FL 32308,
Seems like this is good info for all doctors who work in ER and in delivery. It’s also good for EMS personnel who will no doubt see an uptick in ambulance care when women are sent home or refuse to be admitted “for observation” because they have no insurance and are afraid of the medical bills. Speaking of that… where are the medical professional voices? At what point do more than a few begin to speak out?
Medical bankruptcy is sure to increase with pregnancy miscarriage care in these states. A vaginal delivery or a c-section of a stillborn in 2nd trimester will cost much more than abortion care. Didn’t one of the states attach a burial or cremation cost in addition?
Who is profiting off these new rules and how many legislators have investments in them?
Doctors in Florida make a lot of money. And much of that money is from older patients on Medicare. Patients that would never require that type of medical care so what do they care? Doctors don’t make much money off abortions or dispensing abortifacient drugs so unless they actually care about women and healthcare, what’s in it for them?
The vast majority of men, but also sadly many women, do not know enough about women's bodies, pregnancy, or medical procedures, to understand why these rules are so threatening to women's lives and health. Only the stories of the fates that have befallen individual women seem to break through. (And then of course they argue that it is not systematic, nor deliberately so.)
The very same people that have ensured that the quality of sex education is so poor (or nonexistent) are now seeking to take advantage of that fact. All for the sake of noxious religious beliefs. The 'reality' they want to impose is so bizarre and painful.
They will soon learn when more horror stories start coming out. They will learn when the anti-abortion "Christian" wife ends up in a wheelchair due to lack of emergency care, or has to have her uterus removed from Sepsis or hemorrhaging, or gets an infection because her bladder was knicked during a C-section that she never needed. Only when these very "pious" (sarcasm) women are impacted will the Christian Taliban politicians even consider making any changes and even then they likely won't because most of them are men and they dislike women.
I suspect even comprehensive sex education classes don’t delve into the physical burdens of pregnancy, the many things that can go wrong, and the physical experience of recovery. That would require focusing on the woman’s experience and to my memory the focus is usually on (1) preventing conception and STDS and (2) how an embryo is formed, moves to fetus, etc. Some textbooks just have a fetus on the page, as if the woman doesn’t exist.
It should teach all of that. Everyone had a mother. Everyone who's ever going to be born is going to have a mother (until we do it all in a lab). We should all know what that entails.
It’s frightening how well this PR works in the conservative news bubble. I was genuinely shocked when Jessa Duggar (staunchly anti-choice) publicly talked about her D&C and didn’t realize that she had an abortion. She and her spouse lashed out at everyone for pointing it out, said we were fearmongering with a baby killing agenda. That’s when I realized how misinformed they are. Those women really think there’s some special category for them and they won’t be affected, only the “bad” women will be punished. It’s chilling to see Florida leaning into that ignorance. If only we could reach them.
What's even more amazing about Jessica is that she's still involved in her radical extremist religion, she had a chance to live a normal modern life without all the narrow ideology, judgment, hate. her brother molested her, the parents ignored it... he is in prison serving time for child pornography.... her dad ripped all the kids off money during the TV show. Did you see Happy Shiny People on amazon?
I did see Shiny Happy People and it was eye opening and horrifying! Really shows the mindset of these twisted regressive churches. I always think of Michelle when ACB uses her fundie voice in court. Women and children are just as neglected in that group. I’ll never understand how women stay or gleefully sign up for that!
Agreed, women and children are completely and totally neglected - treated horribly like indentured servants. I was shocked that Michelle and Jim Bob had a contract for marriage - and it allowed him to physically punish her- and Jim Bob put a contract together for his sons-in-laws. Fuckin outrageous!!! They are really no different than FLDS.
It's hard to leave though when you don't have a job, probably no college education, no bank account, no money, your name isn't on the house deed- because none of that's your business......MAN is head of the house. But Jessica had the money to walk away from all of that but she didn't.
It sickens me how they are manipulating language in such a way in order to score political points with womens’ lives. Seeing language used and twisted like this to hurt other people in order to push a narrative agenda the majority of people in this country do not want makes me want to vomit.
It’s not what they are saying but what they are NOT saying. “women will be sent home” means we are supposed to think “oh, she’s ok if we’re not admitting her because obviously we would if it were a real emergency” when we all know that really means a women with pregnancy-related emergency symptoms are being denied care because physicians are too scared to practice medicine for fear of prosecution because *gasp* the woman might need an abortion.
These yahoos need to stop thinking they know better than professionally trained and licensed medical professionals. The gall of their superiority over others never fails to astonish me.
I’m 54. I almost died from an ectopic pregnancy when I was 18. If I was in Florida today when it
happened (tube ruptured, hemorrhaging) I’d probably be dead. But what really makes me want to scream, in a way that I think many of my Gen Xers and older will understand, is that we WON and LOST a fundamental right in OUR LIFETIME!
Pastors and politicians make shitty doctors.
Why can’t the agencies/government be taken to court for practicing medicine without a license? It certainly is what they are doing.
It's so gross that a state agency is putting out guidelines to control doctors rather than having doctors use their experience and expertise along with their patient's input to decide the best course of action for a person's health. That is not a "standard of care." The Agency for Healthcare Administration is not protecting the health of women in Florida at all.
I love how the republicans distrust and downright despise government until they can use it to control us. And the Florida State Health Department? Are you kidding me?
As a Floridian I feel like I've been screaming into the void in outrage and the nightmare keeps getting worse. If I could find a way to turn my rage and sorrow into electricity I'm certain I could power the eastern seaboard at this point.
I currently live in Colorado and have considered moving back to Florida (where I did my higher education and raised my son for 20 years. He and many of my family still lives there). But I honestly don’t know if I could because I literally think I’d just stand in the street screaming 24/7.
It's hard not to do exactly that
We just got back from a California trip and had lunch with friends in Palm Springs. They have a company that head hunts for the medical field. SURPRISE, they are having problems finding medical professionals of all types, particularly family doctors to work in the south. They won't do it because of abortion laws but also LGBTQ laws that are on the books or are coming. The way they described it the professionals respond with a "hell no" we won't go there!
The other concerning item I see here and there why do women, I am only including adults here, have no idea about the new abortion laws where they live? I find it deeply disturbing that most of the FL women at the clinics where clueless as well as 80% of TX don't know. I know life is busy but still? Thanks for doing what you do.
I recently moved to Colorado and saw a gyno a few months after. She was kind, listened, and was very helpful. However, when I questioned her regarding abortion laws in Colorado (it was relevant. I wasn’t just quizzing her lol), she “wasn’t sure.” She works with mostly menopausal women so it doesn’t come up often, I’m sure, but I was quite shocked and a little dismayed that a gyno wouldn’t know her state’s exact laws regarding abortion, in this day and age. It made me reconsider keeping her as a gyno, tbh.
I’m in Texas. My women friends all know about these abortion laws here and are furious. It makes me almost sick to know other women in the state are just clueless about it. The apathy is what allows these laws to pass in many instances. I couldn’t believe Abbott received another term here after Dobbs. I thought maybe enough Texan women would have woken up, but apparently not. I wonder how many even voted or realized the laws had changed. I feel like some think “Oh I will never need an ‘elective’ abortion” but don’t realize how the anti-abortion movement is painting all abortions elective. If you’re not willing to risk your life or organs over your bundle of joy, then it’s ‘elective’. Something like that.
I hope most women in Texas feel as I do - how disgusting it is to force anyone to continue a pregnancy against their will. This should be a private matter, not one the state butts in on. I want to think other women in Texas are just ignorant of the laws.
Texas does have a large Hispanic population and they remain devoted to their Catholic faith (when convenient). Unfortunately, they often vote socially conservative Same problem in Florida as well. I was actually living in Mexico when they decriminalized abortion and when Roe was overturned. Sometimes I look around me and think the last four years have been some sort of fever dream I’m still living in. You know when you pinch yourself to see if you’re actually dreaming? Every day I feel like I have a new bruise because I’m pinching so hard. Please wake up! Only to realize I’m wide awake and just want to go back to sleep. Sigh. But I have to stay awake so I can fight.
Could not some medical association sue to keep politicians from telling them how to do their work? I can think of no field other than female reproduction where politicians make laws that supersede the judgement of medical professionals. I mean, it would take courage, but it ought to be possible.
This guy is Secretary of the agency, ffs; I imagine he was appointed by DeathSantis:
"Jason Weida has extensive experience working on Article III judicial nominations. In 2018, he served on a secondment to DOJ’s Office of Legal Policy (OLP) to assist in the confirmation of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to be as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. For his role, in 2019, he received the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service, DOJ’s second-highest award for employee performance. In 2019, he served on a detail to OLP, where he worked on policy initiatives and judicial nominations."
https://ahca.myflorida.com/agency-administration/about-the-secretary
🤮
I keep wondering just who in this state health care administration is setting these standards. Are they licensed physicians? Or are they just civilians practicing medicine without a license?
Mostly the second. You’ve got MDs and public health “experts” (this is Florida) but it’s the admin part that’s actually making the decision and they may have little or no medical background. Just sycophants who will do the Right’s bidding.
Good article from Religion Dispatches talking about life during the Comstock Act. https://rb.gy/pwag5l
Sorry. Try this link: https://religiondispatches.org/resurrection-of-comstock-laws-would-threaten-access-to-abortifacients-but-even-that-fear-misses-bigger-picture/
Informative article. Thank you for sharing!
Women hold no value in the bible, especially the Old Testament. These radical extremists, Christian Taliban hate us, it is our job to suffer because we brought sin into this world in the Garden of Eden. And there are plenty of women in these extreme organizations who have been indoctrinated into this as well.
And then there are others who are simply just obsessed, they have an embryo and fetus fetish (I might even call it a mental illness) ...... their fetish; as if living in a pregnant woman's womb is a 7-year-old kid that might be aborted when he should be out skateboarding instead.
It doesn't help that inaccurate pictorials of zygote/embryo/fetus progression make it look like for example a 12 week embryo is a perfectly formed miniature human when in fact that isn't at all what it looks like. Or the fake science six week heartbeat.
From a previous comment to AED by Paul Pikowsky that illustrates their Death Cult, he said it best:
"The fetus becomes the cult object, with no independent existence except in the minds of the cult. The c-section, once an emergency procedure in the interest of a woman, becomes a cult ritual, spilling the host's blood to fortify the weak convictions of the believers"
Semantics are very cunning. Ending a pregnancy is heath care for that person no matter what the circumstances. They should demonstrate compassion and evidence based solutions.
For the pregnant person. In some states we are entering a dystopian era that too many under the age of 80 have no understanding of.
Just saying, as listed on their site, the person to contact regarding these new healthcare procedures is
Kelli Fillyaw at Agency for Health Care Administration, Division of Health Care Policy and Oversight, Bureau of Health Facility Regulation, 2727 Mahan Drive, MS# 28A, Tallahassee, FL 32308,
email Kelli.Fillyaw@ahca.myflorida.com or phone 850-412-4442
Seems like this is good info for all doctors who work in ER and in delivery. It’s also good for EMS personnel who will no doubt see an uptick in ambulance care when women are sent home or refuse to be admitted “for observation” because they have no insurance and are afraid of the medical bills. Speaking of that… where are the medical professional voices? At what point do more than a few begin to speak out?
Medical bankruptcy is sure to increase with pregnancy miscarriage care in these states. A vaginal delivery or a c-section of a stillborn in 2nd trimester will cost much more than abortion care. Didn’t one of the states attach a burial or cremation cost in addition?
Who is profiting off these new rules and how many legislators have investments in them?
Doctors in Florida make a lot of money. And much of that money is from older patients on Medicare. Patients that would never require that type of medical care so what do they care? Doctors don’t make much money off abortions or dispensing abortifacient drugs so unless they actually care about women and healthcare, what’s in it for them?
The vast majority of men, but also sadly many women, do not know enough about women's bodies, pregnancy, or medical procedures, to understand why these rules are so threatening to women's lives and health. Only the stories of the fates that have befallen individual women seem to break through. (And then of course they argue that it is not systematic, nor deliberately so.)
The very same people that have ensured that the quality of sex education is so poor (or nonexistent) are now seeking to take advantage of that fact. All for the sake of noxious religious beliefs. The 'reality' they want to impose is so bizarre and painful.
🎯🎯🎯
They will soon learn when more horror stories start coming out. They will learn when the anti-abortion "Christian" wife ends up in a wheelchair due to lack of emergency care, or has to have her uterus removed from Sepsis or hemorrhaging, or gets an infection because her bladder was knicked during a C-section that she never needed. Only when these very "pious" (sarcasm) women are impacted will the Christian Taliban politicians even consider making any changes and even then they likely won't because most of them are men and they dislike women.
They’ll learn but still will not care. God’s will and all that crap.
I hate that we have to wish for carnage so that women can be saved from carnage 💔
I suspect even comprehensive sex education classes don’t delve into the physical burdens of pregnancy, the many things that can go wrong, and the physical experience of recovery. That would require focusing on the woman’s experience and to my memory the focus is usually on (1) preventing conception and STDS and (2) how an embryo is formed, moves to fetus, etc. Some textbooks just have a fetus on the page, as if the woman doesn’t exist.
It should teach all of that. Everyone had a mother. Everyone who's ever going to be born is going to have a mother (until we do it all in a lab). We should all know what that entails.
And a father too.
It’s frightening how well this PR works in the conservative news bubble. I was genuinely shocked when Jessa Duggar (staunchly anti-choice) publicly talked about her D&C and didn’t realize that she had an abortion. She and her spouse lashed out at everyone for pointing it out, said we were fearmongering with a baby killing agenda. That’s when I realized how misinformed they are. Those women really think there’s some special category for them and they won’t be affected, only the “bad” women will be punished. It’s chilling to see Florida leaning into that ignorance. If only we could reach them.
What's even more amazing about Jessica is that she's still involved in her radical extremist religion, she had a chance to live a normal modern life without all the narrow ideology, judgment, hate. her brother molested her, the parents ignored it... he is in prison serving time for child pornography.... her dad ripped all the kids off money during the TV show. Did you see Happy Shiny People on amazon?
I did see Shiny Happy People and it was eye opening and horrifying! Really shows the mindset of these twisted regressive churches. I always think of Michelle when ACB uses her fundie voice in court. Women and children are just as neglected in that group. I’ll never understand how women stay or gleefully sign up for that!
Sadly, they beat it into them as babies using "Blanket training" they literally beat the curiosity out of their babies. Michelle Duggar endorsed it!
Agreed, women and children are completely and totally neglected - treated horribly like indentured servants. I was shocked that Michelle and Jim Bob had a contract for marriage - and it allowed him to physically punish her- and Jim Bob put a contract together for his sons-in-laws. Fuckin outrageous!!! They are really no different than FLDS.
It's hard to leave though when you don't have a job, probably no college education, no bank account, no money, your name isn't on the house deed- because none of that's your business......MAN is head of the house. But Jessica had the money to walk away from all of that but she didn't.
It sickens me how they are manipulating language in such a way in order to score political points with womens’ lives. Seeing language used and twisted like this to hurt other people in order to push a narrative agenda the majority of people in this country do not want makes me want to vomit.
It’s not what they are saying but what they are NOT saying. “women will be sent home” means we are supposed to think “oh, she’s ok if we’re not admitting her because obviously we would if it were a real emergency” when we all know that really means a women with pregnancy-related emergency symptoms are being denied care because physicians are too scared to practice medicine for fear of prosecution because *gasp* the woman might need an abortion.
These yahoos need to stop thinking they know better than professionally trained and licensed medical professionals. The gall of their superiority over others never fails to astonish me.
Thank you Stacey. The only person who knows best is patient and doctor. It’s none of their damn business
This is how our bodies are sold for votes.
I have to say too that I am glad to have a place like this to come to where I am welcome to express my views. I hate this situation so much.