Jessica wrote an article published in Rolling Stone how the right is changing terminology to avoid, for example, the word “ban.” I wrote a similar piece last July how pro-choice advocates should also change wording to differentiate an abortion by choice, from termination of a pregnancy when it is a medical emergency. Check it out here https://stevetmvca.substack.com/p/hair-on-fire?r=v5in8
Why would we want to differentiate? As a a retired surgical assistant who worked for a couple of decades in reproductive healthcare , I can tell you the reasons are personal, and abortion IS healthcare, often lifesaving in both cases, and the government has no place interfereing with it.
I want polling that also assesses abortion / pregnancy education. It seems pretty clear to me 50 years of not talking about what abortion is in schools means most Americans don’t know how or when abortion applies in pregnancy — even though I am confident more are paying attention now.
Yes most don't understand that the proper medical terminology for what is commonly labeled "Miscarriage" is "Spontaneous abortion". We need to take the word back from the ignorant and educate the public, in some kind of medical reality.
And the sad part is that all of this isn’t really about abortion at all. It's a hot button issue that republicans created to drive their narrative and gain more voters. Makes me furious!
Yes in the '70's after Bob Jones University couldn't get tax exemption, because they didn't want to comply with the civil rights act, they couldn't campaign on racism anymore, but they wanted their mostly apathetic flocks to vote. They test drove several issues, and finally abortion got the rubes to the polls. Before that, only the Catholics were against abortion. It's really weird to see them hiss, that they have a longstanding belief about something you saw unfold in your lifetime.
Now knowing that we're going to lose in November due to a stubborn, selfish old man (Biden), I've lost hope. I'll continue to follow, but I'm thinking ahead. That the worst will happen. Back to pre-Roe. What strategies will there be then?
So I think in preparing for what could be we should acknowledge we’re not going back to pre 1973.
For example, they can’t un-invent mifepristone. And we have the internet, encrypted communication, and cheaper international shipping options which didn’t exist back then. Abortion isn’t going to disappear.
And I started typing up all the dystopic shit these anti-abortion lunatics are fantasizing about but it was gross and I stopped myself. AED does an excellent job reporting on it and still remaining sane, but I think it’s sufficient to say that they want Orwellian levels of control over women and would use cellular and digital tracking to monitor and God knows what else in ways they couldn’t imagine in 1973.
So — writing somewhat to answer you and mostly for my future self — what to do if Election Day is a fucking catastrophe and every branch of government starts executing Order 66 err Project 2025 err Agenda 47?
- Get abortion meds in advance. Advance provision abortion medication before Jan 2025. Help friends and family do it.
- Fund pro-Choice causes.
- Educate yourself and Support education initiatives. People have to know *why abortion matters*. That’s part of the main reason we lost Roe. How often did Roe come up in pre-2016 debates? 🦗 Constant vigilance!
- Fund good journalism that investigates corruption. CPCs, shitty laws and officials.
- Be a citizen. Vote. Especially local elections. Help a campaign, volunteer, maybe run for office.
- Protest. Part of their platform is pretending you don’t exist and scaring people into inaction and despair. See Alt Right Playbook on Mainstreaming: https://youtu.be/Gq0ZHgKT2tc
- Get wealthy. I mean this facetiously but abortion isn’t going to disappear for the rich. Just for the poor and middle class peoples. Rich people will fly their doctors to them or live abroad when pregnant. To get similar access *people will have to pay more*. You might need to move or change your travel plans. I don’t have a nice way to say this. Anti-abortion policies are dumb and harmful. This costs resources we — individuals and society — should be spending on actual problems. (The CPC example here is a great one: Texas could just pay for diapers but nawh! )
- Therapy and a hobby and community. One way I look at abortion is that it is really about making space for other freedoms and opportunities. So make sure you are finding ways to enjoy life if/when you can. A season for all things or something like that.
- Reframe the narrative. I really like the idea that the pro Choice movement could be a movement based in hope and positivity. We have science and freedom on our side. Along with the majority of the population. I get why we share the sob stories, I just want us to shift the framing from omg-omg we can’t stop the villains so we are are the heroes. (1) shitty thing happened to person bc of anti abortion assholes (2) stand with us and be legends — let’s stop this nonsense and make America the land of the free. It’s subtle but a movement of hope is more sustainable and just fun. We are liberators.
Stock up on pregnancy testing kits too. Nobody is persecuting this technology and the manufacturers claim they will detect pregnancy six days before a missed period.
I honestly think part of the reason Biden is staying in the race is that he doesn't really care about abortion rights. He used to be pro-life, so the particular stakes are just not as critical to him of, say, shadow banning abortion using the Comstock Act or whatever Trump's next coo-coo bananas justice has to say about fetal personhood. Biden used to be pro-life.
I’m beginning to lose faith too. I actually think he did a good job as president, the first 2 - 2 ½ yrs, but as some have said on tv, he seems to have lost his political instincts about how to win. He’s doing a terrible job in regards to the Israel/Palestinian situation, he isn’t getting our message out forcefully enough to win, etc.
I was an RN for over 42 yrs & I see serious cognitive & physical decline.
Remember when many months ago there would be a video of him riding his bike, or he’d jog across the stage just for fun? We haven’t seen anything like that in quite a while.
I think the press conference later today 7/10 may well be a fiasco. If it is, our elected leaders better sh*t or get off the pot.
This election is way too important to be jacking around with. I think most of the stubbornness about staying in the race is coming from Jill, Hunter, & his closest WH staff who don’t want to relinquish their positions & power.
I'm constantly bemused that in a country with a third of a billion people the political parties can't field two candidates who are cognitively intact. The Republicans literally have depth on the bench--dozens of judges recruited straight out of the Hitler Youth (sorry, I mean the Federalist Society). The Democrats literally lack depth on the bench. Even if Biden did the unthinkable and put the welfare of the country above his personal ambitions, I don't know who the Democrats could substitute who could beat Trump. I wish they'd draft Elizabeth Warren, but a) they're not going to and b) I don't know if she could win the election. With the additional complication that winning the election doesn't necessarily mean that the winner will simply be inaugurated and serve as president. The Republican credo is "heads I win, tails you lose."
Oh my god, if Title X - a program that provides ACTUAL sexual and reproductive healthcare - did anything near what the CPCs are doing, we’d get shut down so fast. The oversight in providing actually healthcare is a strict.
That's what mystifies me, I had to study, and pass rigorous testing, to prove myself worthy to assist surgeons in any procedure. I spent Years! And these yahoos with no knowledge, in their absolute ignorance, want to make rules about that which they have incompletete (at best) or no understanding of very complicated issues involving human bodies!
I think that same 3 people things is exactly the equivalent of the 3 (or of maybe 5) detranstitioners testifying in favor of gender affirming care bans. All part and parcel of the christo-fascist/project 2025 agenda
I’ve been wondering about that. My Christian nephew & I were having a political debate over text & I had pointed out something pretty terrible about Trump & then he said that Biden was evil too. Huh?? Whut? He said that about people who’d had transgender surgery & now regretted it & hated the doctors who had done it. Of course the Democrats, & Biden in particular are to blame. 🙄
I figured that it was probably just a small handful of people making a huge amount of noise.
It's probably like when the religious right paid Norma, who was "Roe" in the court case Roe vs Wade. The RR targets vulnerable people and 'guilts' them into renouncing so they can use them as an example against others. They pay rather well, and if you weren't financially secure, I can see kids who were brought up fundy being fooled into it.
I've seen the statistic (and I'm quoting from memory, I might be slightly off) that the percentage of people who regret gender affirming surgery is something like 1.5%. WAY below basically every other type of surgery.
But yes, just a very small handful making the huge amount of noise.
"Republicans don’t have science, medicine or any credible groups on their side—so they all have to import these absolute fucking hacks. I’m so over it."
Anyone here gonna make this quote into a t-shirt??? A friend wants to know....
Omg.. news out of AR.. 💔& stunning
For your consideration to support pro-choice ballot initiatives:
https://x.com/dsc250/status/1811049101909241961?s=46
Direct link:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/abortionrights2024
Provides direct link to individual state pro-abortion ballot fundraising apparatus. Not a 3rd party, but for those doing the grassroots work.
Jessica wrote an article published in Rolling Stone how the right is changing terminology to avoid, for example, the word “ban.” I wrote a similar piece last July how pro-choice advocates should also change wording to differentiate an abortion by choice, from termination of a pregnancy when it is a medical emergency. Check it out here https://stevetmvca.substack.com/p/hair-on-fire?r=v5in8
Why would we want to differentiate? As a a retired surgical assistant who worked for a couple of decades in reproductive healthcare , I can tell you the reasons are personal, and abortion IS healthcare, often lifesaving in both cases, and the government has no place interfereing with it.
I want polling that also assesses abortion / pregnancy education. It seems pretty clear to me 50 years of not talking about what abortion is in schools means most Americans don’t know how or when abortion applies in pregnancy — even though I am confident more are paying attention now.
Yes most don't understand that the proper medical terminology for what is commonly labeled "Miscarriage" is "Spontaneous abortion". We need to take the word back from the ignorant and educate the public, in some kind of medical reality.
"Lest you think I’m forever complaining, check out the few places that got this story right: The New Republic, Slate and The 19th. Whew."
And Vanity Fair! https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/after-killing-roe-v-wade-trump-pretends-to-be-a-moderate-on-abortion
I bet also "Teen Vogue" which now does better reporting than the NYT!
Oh, and Rolling Stone and NYT but they're behind a paywall. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-republicans-hide-anti-abortion-plans-rnc-platform-1235055438/
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/02/opinion/14th-amendment-abortion-scotus.html
And the sad part is that all of this isn’t really about abortion at all. It's a hot button issue that republicans created to drive their narrative and gain more voters. Makes me furious!
Yes in the '70's after Bob Jones University couldn't get tax exemption, because they didn't want to comply with the civil rights act, they couldn't campaign on racism anymore, but they wanted their mostly apathetic flocks to vote. They test drove several issues, and finally abortion got the rubes to the polls. Before that, only the Catholics were against abortion. It's really weird to see them hiss, that they have a longstanding belief about something you saw unfold in your lifetime.
Now knowing that we're going to lose in November due to a stubborn, selfish old man (Biden), I've lost hope. I'll continue to follow, but I'm thinking ahead. That the worst will happen. Back to pre-Roe. What strategies will there be then?
So I think in preparing for what could be we should acknowledge we’re not going back to pre 1973.
For example, they can’t un-invent mifepristone. And we have the internet, encrypted communication, and cheaper international shipping options which didn’t exist back then. Abortion isn’t going to disappear.
And I started typing up all the dystopic shit these anti-abortion lunatics are fantasizing about but it was gross and I stopped myself. AED does an excellent job reporting on it and still remaining sane, but I think it’s sufficient to say that they want Orwellian levels of control over women and would use cellular and digital tracking to monitor and God knows what else in ways they couldn’t imagine in 1973.
So — writing somewhat to answer you and mostly for my future self — what to do if Election Day is a fucking catastrophe and every branch of government starts executing Order 66 err Project 2025 err Agenda 47?
- Get abortion meds in advance. Advance provision abortion medication before Jan 2025. Help friends and family do it.
- Fund pro-Choice causes.
- Educate yourself and Support education initiatives. People have to know *why abortion matters*. That’s part of the main reason we lost Roe. How often did Roe come up in pre-2016 debates? 🦗 Constant vigilance!
- Fund good journalism that investigates corruption. CPCs, shitty laws and officials.
- Be a citizen. Vote. Especially local elections. Help a campaign, volunteer, maybe run for office.
- Protest. Part of their platform is pretending you don’t exist and scaring people into inaction and despair. See Alt Right Playbook on Mainstreaming: https://youtu.be/Gq0ZHgKT2tc
- Get wealthy. I mean this facetiously but abortion isn’t going to disappear for the rich. Just for the poor and middle class peoples. Rich people will fly their doctors to them or live abroad when pregnant. To get similar access *people will have to pay more*. You might need to move or change your travel plans. I don’t have a nice way to say this. Anti-abortion policies are dumb and harmful. This costs resources we — individuals and society — should be spending on actual problems. (The CPC example here is a great one: Texas could just pay for diapers but nawh! )
- Therapy and a hobby and community. One way I look at abortion is that it is really about making space for other freedoms and opportunities. So make sure you are finding ways to enjoy life if/when you can. A season for all things or something like that.
- Reframe the narrative. I really like the idea that the pro Choice movement could be a movement based in hope and positivity. We have science and freedom on our side. Along with the majority of the population. I get why we share the sob stories, I just want us to shift the framing from omg-omg we can’t stop the villains so we are are the heroes. (1) shitty thing happened to person bc of anti abortion assholes (2) stand with us and be legends — let’s stop this nonsense and make America the land of the free. It’s subtle but a movement of hope is more sustainable and just fun. We are liberators.
And to end with something fun and stupid: Parks and Rec’s rebrand of fluoride https://youtu.be/8c0JrJdJrBA
Stock up on pregnancy testing kits too. Nobody is persecuting this technology and the manufacturers claim they will detect pregnancy six days before a missed period.
I honestly think part of the reason Biden is staying in the race is that he doesn't really care about abortion rights. He used to be pro-life, so the particular stakes are just not as critical to him of, say, shadow banning abortion using the Comstock Act or whatever Trump's next coo-coo bananas justice has to say about fetal personhood. Biden used to be pro-life.
I’m beginning to lose faith too. I actually think he did a good job as president, the first 2 - 2 ½ yrs, but as some have said on tv, he seems to have lost his political instincts about how to win. He’s doing a terrible job in regards to the Israel/Palestinian situation, he isn’t getting our message out forcefully enough to win, etc.
I was an RN for over 42 yrs & I see serious cognitive & physical decline.
Remember when many months ago there would be a video of him riding his bike, or he’d jog across the stage just for fun? We haven’t seen anything like that in quite a while.
I think the press conference later today 7/10 may well be a fiasco. If it is, our elected leaders better sh*t or get off the pot.
This election is way too important to be jacking around with. I think most of the stubbornness about staying in the race is coming from Jill, Hunter, & his closest WH staff who don’t want to relinquish their positions & power.
I'm constantly bemused that in a country with a third of a billion people the political parties can't field two candidates who are cognitively intact. The Republicans literally have depth on the bench--dozens of judges recruited straight out of the Hitler Youth (sorry, I mean the Federalist Society). The Democrats literally lack depth on the bench. Even if Biden did the unthinkable and put the welfare of the country above his personal ambitions, I don't know who the Democrats could substitute who could beat Trump. I wish they'd draft Elizabeth Warren, but a) they're not going to and b) I don't know if she could win the election. With the additional complication that winning the election doesn't necessarily mean that the winner will simply be inaugurated and serve as president. The Republican credo is "heads I win, tails you lose."
Oh my god, if Title X - a program that provides ACTUAL sexual and reproductive healthcare - did anything near what the CPCs are doing, we’d get shut down so fast. The oversight in providing actually healthcare is a strict.
That's what mystifies me, I had to study, and pass rigorous testing, to prove myself worthy to assist surgeons in any procedure. I spent Years! And these yahoos with no knowledge, in their absolute ignorance, want to make rules about that which they have incompletete (at best) or no understanding of very complicated issues involving human bodies!
I think that same 3 people things is exactly the equivalent of the 3 (or of maybe 5) detranstitioners testifying in favor of gender affirming care bans. All part and parcel of the christo-fascist/project 2025 agenda
I’ve been wondering about that. My Christian nephew & I were having a political debate over text & I had pointed out something pretty terrible about Trump & then he said that Biden was evil too. Huh?? Whut? He said that about people who’d had transgender surgery & now regretted it & hated the doctors who had done it. Of course the Democrats, & Biden in particular are to blame. 🙄
I figured that it was probably just a small handful of people making a huge amount of noise.
It's probably like when the religious right paid Norma, who was "Roe" in the court case Roe vs Wade. The RR targets vulnerable people and 'guilts' them into renouncing so they can use them as an example against others. They pay rather well, and if you weren't financially secure, I can see kids who were brought up fundy being fooled into it.
I've seen the statistic (and I'm quoting from memory, I might be slightly off) that the percentage of people who regret gender affirming surgery is something like 1.5%. WAY below basically every other type of surgery.
But yes, just a very small handful making the huge amount of noise.
Sadly, all they need are a few sad souls to exploit to make it difficult for the rest who are fulfilled.
We created "Abortion Ballot Measures Map" after reading Jessica's recent post.
Which States have Abortion Rights on the ballot?
How does your state rank in terms of the number of rapes?
Can you see the link between the states with the most rapes and the harshest abortion bans?
Which Senators voted to block IVF?
Which MAGA Congressional reps voted to deny couples IVF?
Check this map.
https://thedemlabs.org/2024/07/09/abortion-ballot-measures-map/
"Republicans don’t have science, medicine or any credible groups on their side—so they all have to import these absolute fucking hacks. I’m so over it."
Anyone here gonna make this quote into a t-shirt??? A friend wants to know....
Ooo maybe with line art pics of the three hacks?
❤️👏👏👏👏👏