As someone who has had more miscarriages than babies, and not for want of trying, I have always been a little conflicted about abortion. But what I am not conflicted about is that this is not my choice to make for other women. How dare the Republican justices put themselves above the will of the majority of the people. It should not be about who shouts loudest. It should not even be about an antiquated constitution written almost a quarter of a millennium ago. Especially since those who roar about pro-life are the same people who pay no heed to the high maternal and newborn mortality rates, appallingly high for a “civilized” country. They don’t care about the number of children living and dying in poverty. They don’t care about the number of innocent people who have been executed. It has nothing to do with life and everything to do with control. If it was about life ….
JUST what everyone needs to hear today...hell, everyday. I'll always vote Dem over Repub, but you're 100% right the Dems have put us where we're at today
A funny thing happened yesterday. I moved from numb to bed. I literally felt the fearangerhatesadness in my body. I slept for 3 hours, freezing cold, could not get warm. Woke up and said, time to take action. I did a covid test and I'm fine. My body just. could. not. take. it. Today I posted emilyslist on facebook, I posted the speech I gave to students in 2004 about the urgency for voting specifically about SCOTUS and abortion, and I'm revving up again. It's a roller coaster, this lifetime of social justice. I am weary. I am beaten down. I will never give up.
I forgot to mention this excellent opinion piece by Marina Hyde, a columnist for the English Guardian. A quote:
"We can all understand the political imperative to talk of Roe v Wade as “settled law”, but the honest assessment from most pro-choice American women you care to talk to is that it has never felt truly settled. Women’s rights and autonomies should be their inheritance; instead, they’re just another rented thing they could be evicted from or priced out of at any moment.
Far from being “liberated”, American women are in an abusive relationship with partisan lawmakers in which no sense of security is even close to permanent, and nothing is given that cannot be taken away at any point."
Totally agree!!! I also think even those who supported abortion rights believed in the politics of inevitability. That womens rights would progress on their own ie choice feminism. But that is never the way the world has worked!
I'm 80 years old, been fighting this crap for 60 years. No amount of "explaining" makes a damn bit of difference.
Two things happened to me on Twitter today. Two men, on the opposite ends of the intellectual spectrum, both equally clueless and useless.
One was a male Washington Post correspondent opining intellectually about whether we should put all our Democratic energy into the Abortion Issue. "What about job growth?" he asks. Women start replying WTF? I finally ask, "why should I care about job opportunities if I am constantly pregnant. None of those great jobs are remotely available to me if I'm pregnant - or perceived to be at risk of pregnancy" The fact is that, for women, the Abortion Issue goes far beyond the physical act of Abortion. It is literally about us being able to live our lives and support ourselves and our families.
The man just doesn't get it. For him, it was *only* about this one relatively small, unrelated issue.
A little later I'm on another twitter thread about babies, diapers and formula - nothing to do with abortion. I casually mention something about struggling as a young mother with laundromats and diapers. This guy jumps on and apparently assumes I was an unwed mother irresponsibly birthing babies I couldn't afford. He tells me blatantly I should not have had sex if I couldn't have afforded children. I start answering back that no, in fact my husband and I were Grad School IT professionals who hit a horrendous medical emergency event and were temporarily struggling financially.
And then I realize WTF, it's not even that this second guy, Diaper Man, "just doesn't get it." He doesn't even WANT to "get it". What he WANTS is to label me as an irresponsible slut who should have "just kept her legs shut".
So yeah, I'm done. We've tried for 60 plus years to get people, mainly men, to understand. We try to explain, find common ground, provide perspective. It DOES NOT WORK. We need to stop TALKING and start DOING whatever it takes TO WIN. Maybe the other side will eventually start to understand and will move to join us. At this point, I frankly don't care; I just want them out of my way.
I'm not worried. I'm secure enough in my moral baseline that I trust I won't cross it.
But the ethereal mythical intellectual HIgh Ground? It's useless. It's time to fight.
Even RBG saw this coming and I had hoped she’d left at least a few ideas behind to help. I don’t know why someone hasn’t devoted their life to figuring out an alternative way. It’s been decades. There was time. I’m only sorry I had no aptitude for law.
I think the law becomes secondary to politics or one's worldview when it comes to this issue. Law allows you to argue either way. But I don't think it gets decided by having the better legal argument. It becomes about political will.
I would expect the three Democratic justices would put their very best arguments forth in their dissents. Even Roberts may dissent, though his reasoning is likely to be different (but may provide another argument to use with those who aren't converted).
I do think it changes a lot, both legally and politically, when you're no longer in the position of trying to defend the status quo (and yes even that status quo was not well defended, when you consider that in many states the rights guaranteed by Roe have been severely eroded as more conditions on abortion became acceptable). We're going to learn a lot over the next months and years. I have to hope for some good to come out of crisis, as much as we mourn the damage.
The Dems are cowards but that goes for almost all so-called progressive parties almost worldwide. Their 'strategy' is to lean it to the Right instead of making a case for real progressive politics.
Still, all that explaining has not been totally in vain; the majority of the people are against making abortion illegal.
The trick now is to convince the American voters to (hold their noses and) vote the Republicans out in every election, even if that means voting for candidates you don't particularly like, or even respect.
The Republicans have declared war on democracy, and on women; it's time to forget about high ideals and principles and to beat the motherfuckers.
I think one issue is that progressive parties usually need moderate voters to be able to win elections or form coalitions, (which isn't always as true for conservative parties). But yes there's a courageous way to appeal to moderate voters and a more cowardly way, so point taken.
Jessica, you are right to say, 'I refuse to explain, over and over again, that women are people,' especially after you detail all the work already done.
But I do think it's worth considering that, perhaps, most people just haven't been paying attention. Which is extremely frustrating. But now, if there's a window in which people are tuned in, it might be more important than ever that that information and those stories are reshared. And the rest of us really need to pick up the work.
I don't know what's going to happen, and it's taking place in the broader context of a time in which we face imminent threats to subvert democracy in this country. All we can do is fight.
And yes, the priority is getting women health care, and hopefully doing as best as possible to avoid jail and lawsuits in the process, because we need everybody.
Perhaps but don't forget that the Republicans illegally stopped Obama from appointing Merrick Garland. They were waging war on democracy even then, so who says he would have managed to get a suitable replacement for RBG?
It's tricky because Rs held the Senate the last six years of his presidency, so ideally it would have had to be in the first two years, when he was already replacing a justice in each of those years. And I hate to ever second guess RBG. But....yeah.
May be 70% of Americans do not want Roe overturned, but almost 50% voted for Trump, including 42% of white women (per WaPo stats).Voting for Trump and supporting abortion rights is incompatible.
Unfortunately I think the support for Roe is weak. It has never been a central issue for women. Crickets after the ban on abortion in Texas and even when Republicans support criminalizing abortion even for cases of rape they don’t lose support. But I think this partly because the democrats basically ceded the issue to the conservatives who bashed abortion constantly
I think the support is weak, because these women don't think this is an existential issue. That could be part laziness (because Roe was the law of the land) and part the illusion that abortion was not really there for 'their kind of people'.
The Dems could have done more to change the narrative about the latter but you're also dealing with human nature: it's awfully hard to stop people from being lazily (and delusionally) self-centred
That is true but they could then hide behind Roe v Wade still being the law of the land. I'm not saying they will change their vote now but they can't hide any longer.
Yes we'll have to see if anything changes. Women who are pro-Roe but voted Trump are most likely a combination of racist and / or wealthy and don't want to pay their taxes. Does this change their voting behavior - idk.
I had an idea a few years ago which was to host a TED-type event around Abortion rights. To frame and more importantly reframe the topic. Invite the 2,000 people you need to REALLY get it. Spend the months it would take to get the very best ideas on that stage, ideas honed, arguments made, etc. Ideas that when videotaped can be shared, and discussed. And I managed to get people who would normally reject abortion rights as valid on board. The organization that could have funded it however wanted to run an advertising campaign in the NYT. As if that 10 seconds it takes to flip the page will create change. There are times when I just want to call it done, too. Not say my idea was THE idea, just the inability to entertain a fresh approach.
I know that's controversial for a lot of reasons! :) I would just add that as a man it's always difficult to understand how men who want to have sex with women could hate them so much (I mean, I have theories, but it just feels so wrong).
And men who claim to be progressive or 'woke' or whatever but come up short on feminism are the worst. Gender injustice is still by far the greatest source of injustice in the world, and the secondary effects in so many other areas are substantial.
Amen to this: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/07/enforced-childbirth-is-slavery-margaret-atwood-on-the-right-to-abortion
As someone who has had more miscarriages than babies, and not for want of trying, I have always been a little conflicted about abortion. But what I am not conflicted about is that this is not my choice to make for other women. How dare the Republican justices put themselves above the will of the majority of the people. It should not be about who shouts loudest. It should not even be about an antiquated constitution written almost a quarter of a millennium ago. Especially since those who roar about pro-life are the same people who pay no heed to the high maternal and newborn mortality rates, appallingly high for a “civilized” country. They don’t care about the number of children living and dying in poverty. They don’t care about the number of innocent people who have been executed. It has nothing to do with life and everything to do with control. If it was about life ….
JUST what everyone needs to hear today...hell, everyday. I'll always vote Dem over Repub, but you're 100% right the Dems have put us where we're at today
A funny thing happened yesterday. I moved from numb to bed. I literally felt the fearangerhatesadness in my body. I slept for 3 hours, freezing cold, could not get warm. Woke up and said, time to take action. I did a covid test and I'm fine. My body just. could. not. take. it. Today I posted emilyslist on facebook, I posted the speech I gave to students in 2004 about the urgency for voting specifically about SCOTUS and abortion, and I'm revving up again. It's a roller coaster, this lifetime of social justice. I am weary. I am beaten down. I will never give up.
I forgot to mention this excellent opinion piece by Marina Hyde, a columnist for the English Guardian. A quote:
"We can all understand the political imperative to talk of Roe v Wade as “settled law”, but the honest assessment from most pro-choice American women you care to talk to is that it has never felt truly settled. Women’s rights and autonomies should be their inheritance; instead, they’re just another rented thing they could be evicted from or priced out of at any moment.
Far from being “liberated”, American women are in an abusive relationship with partisan lawmakers in which no sense of security is even close to permanent, and nothing is given that cannot be taken away at any point."
It's worth reading in total; nobody combines ruthless satire with honest fury like MH: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/03/abortions-us-supreme-court-leak-women-die-pro-life
Totally agree!!! I also think even those who supported abortion rights believed in the politics of inevitability. That womens rights would progress on their own ie choice feminism. But that is never the way the world has worked!
However much I admire King, he has a lot to answer for with his 'The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.'
That was always bullshit and this rightwing usurpation of legal power proves what a dangerous piece of bullshit it is.
There is no arc, and there is certainly no such thing as a moral universe.
No right, no form of progress, is ever safe; it needs to be guarded and defended constantly.
agreed.
I'm 80 years old, been fighting this crap for 60 years. No amount of "explaining" makes a damn bit of difference.
Two things happened to me on Twitter today. Two men, on the opposite ends of the intellectual spectrum, both equally clueless and useless.
One was a male Washington Post correspondent opining intellectually about whether we should put all our Democratic energy into the Abortion Issue. "What about job growth?" he asks. Women start replying WTF? I finally ask, "why should I care about job opportunities if I am constantly pregnant. None of those great jobs are remotely available to me if I'm pregnant - or perceived to be at risk of pregnancy" The fact is that, for women, the Abortion Issue goes far beyond the physical act of Abortion. It is literally about us being able to live our lives and support ourselves and our families.
The man just doesn't get it. For him, it was *only* about this one relatively small, unrelated issue.
A little later I'm on another twitter thread about babies, diapers and formula - nothing to do with abortion. I casually mention something about struggling as a young mother with laundromats and diapers. This guy jumps on and apparently assumes I was an unwed mother irresponsibly birthing babies I couldn't afford. He tells me blatantly I should not have had sex if I couldn't have afforded children. I start answering back that no, in fact my husband and I were Grad School IT professionals who hit a horrendous medical emergency event and were temporarily struggling financially.
And then I realize WTF, it's not even that this second guy, Diaper Man, "just doesn't get it." He doesn't even WANT to "get it". What he WANTS is to label me as an irresponsible slut who should have "just kept her legs shut".
So yeah, I'm done. We've tried for 60 plus years to get people, mainly men, to understand. We try to explain, find common ground, provide perspective. It DOES NOT WORK. We need to stop TALKING and start DOING whatever it takes TO WIN. Maybe the other side will eventually start to understand and will move to join us. At this point, I frankly don't care; I just want them out of my way.
I'm not worried. I'm secure enough in my moral baseline that I trust I won't cross it.
But the ethereal mythical intellectual HIgh Ground? It's useless. It's time to fight.
Even RBG saw this coming and I had hoped she’d left at least a few ideas behind to help. I don’t know why someone hasn’t devoted their life to figuring out an alternative way. It’s been decades. There was time. I’m only sorry I had no aptitude for law.
I think the law becomes secondary to politics or one's worldview when it comes to this issue. Law allows you to argue either way. But I don't think it gets decided by having the better legal argument. It becomes about political will.
You still can’t come to the table with nothing but precedent.
I would expect the three Democratic justices would put their very best arguments forth in their dissents. Even Roberts may dissent, though his reasoning is likely to be different (but may provide another argument to use with those who aren't converted).
I do think it changes a lot, both legally and politically, when you're no longer in the position of trying to defend the status quo (and yes even that status quo was not well defended, when you consider that in many states the rights guaranteed by Roe have been severely eroded as more conditions on abortion became acceptable). We're going to learn a lot over the next months and years. I have to hope for some good to come out of crisis, as much as we mourn the damage.
The Dems are cowards but that goes for almost all so-called progressive parties almost worldwide. Their 'strategy' is to lean it to the Right instead of making a case for real progressive politics.
Still, all that explaining has not been totally in vain; the majority of the people are against making abortion illegal.
The trick now is to convince the American voters to (hold their noses and) vote the Republicans out in every election, even if that means voting for candidates you don't particularly like, or even respect.
The Republicans have declared war on democracy, and on women; it's time to forget about high ideals and principles and to beat the motherfuckers.
I think one issue is that progressive parties usually need moderate voters to be able to win elections or form coalitions, (which isn't always as true for conservative parties). But yes there's a courageous way to appeal to moderate voters and a more cowardly way, so point taken.
Jessica, you are right to say, 'I refuse to explain, over and over again, that women are people,' especially after you detail all the work already done.
But I do think it's worth considering that, perhaps, most people just haven't been paying attention. Which is extremely frustrating. But now, if there's a window in which people are tuned in, it might be more important than ever that that information and those stories are reshared. And the rest of us really need to pick up the work.
I don't know what's going to happen, and it's taking place in the broader context of a time in which we face imminent threats to subvert democracy in this country. All we can do is fight.
And yes, the priority is getting women health care, and hopefully doing as best as possible to avoid jail and lawsuits in the process, because we need everybody.
RBG should have retired during the Obama years. That choice not to do so had huge consequences.
Perhaps but don't forget that the Republicans illegally stopped Obama from appointing Merrick Garland. They were waging war on democracy even then, so who says he would have managed to get a suitable replacement for RBG?
It's tricky because Rs held the Senate the last six years of his presidency, so ideally it would have had to be in the first two years, when he was already replacing a justice in each of those years. And I hate to ever second guess RBG. But....yeah.
May be 70% of Americans do not want Roe overturned, but almost 50% voted for Trump, including 42% of white women (per WaPo stats).Voting for Trump and supporting abortion rights is incompatible.
Unfortunately I think the support for Roe is weak. It has never been a central issue for women. Crickets after the ban on abortion in Texas and even when Republicans support criminalizing abortion even for cases of rape they don’t lose support. But I think this partly because the democrats basically ceded the issue to the conservatives who bashed abortion constantly
I think the support is weak, because these women don't think this is an existential issue. That could be part laziness (because Roe was the law of the land) and part the illusion that abortion was not really there for 'their kind of people'.
The Dems could have done more to change the narrative about the latter but you're also dealing with human nature: it's awfully hard to stop people from being lazily (and delusionally) self-centred
That is true but they could then hide behind Roe v Wade still being the law of the land. I'm not saying they will change their vote now but they can't hide any longer.
Yes we'll have to see if anything changes. Women who are pro-Roe but voted Trump are most likely a combination of racist and / or wealthy and don't want to pay their taxes. Does this change their voting behavior - idk.
It's baffling that these women can't see through his act. As if he cares about babies.
I had an idea a few years ago which was to host a TED-type event around Abortion rights. To frame and more importantly reframe the topic. Invite the 2,000 people you need to REALLY get it. Spend the months it would take to get the very best ideas on that stage, ideas honed, arguments made, etc. Ideas that when videotaped can be shared, and discussed. And I managed to get people who would normally reject abortion rights as valid on board. The organization that could have funded it however wanted to run an advertising campaign in the NYT. As if that 10 seconds it takes to flip the page will create change. There are times when I just want to call it done, too. Not say my idea was THE idea, just the inability to entertain a fresh approach.
I know that's controversial for a lot of reasons! :) I would just add that as a man it's always difficult to understand how men who want to have sex with women could hate them so much (I mean, I have theories, but it just feels so wrong).
And men who claim to be progressive or 'woke' or whatever but come up short on feminism are the worst. Gender injustice is still by far the greatest source of injustice in the world, and the secondary effects in so many other areas are substantial.