There was a study posted on substack that claimed that being progressive was related to mental illness in college students. The measure of being progressive was being willing to shout down a speaker you didn't agree with. Duh!
Kind of off topic, but something that I have been concerned about for a long time. We have to stop letting them get away with calling abortion murder. This has been especially relevant as we are seeing the radical abortion laws in places like Texas. The Supreme Court in Texas is willing to let women die from problem pregnancies to protect the belief that abortion is wrong under all circumstances. This is what happens with absolutistic thinking. People die. The same thing is happening with guns. When people have an absolute right to possess guns, we end up with mass shootings with no control over the weapons that allow this to happen. Witness the decision on bump stocks.
When laws put women's lives at risk, the moral and logical problem with the absolute belief that terminating a pregnancy is murder is revealed. Anti abortionists are faced with the fact that taking the position can lead to the death of another. The moral equivalence between the fetus and a living human being is false and needs to be challenged.
How do that? I don't know exactly. But I think we need to start the discussion.
In the WSJ today, they published an article about how all of those right-wing studies used by anti-abortion organizations have flawed science. One of the commenters had a suggestion to take the graphic showing the states that broke down access categories into t-shirts and billboards for November.
People do NOT like being told what to do, especially in a culture as individualistic as ours here in the US. The best argument around this issue is about freedom and choice and autonomy, about people deciding, not state legislators or Supreme Court "justices."
The insurance codes follow government positions, whether legislated or not. That's a battle we can take on, once we regain more power and win elections.
I'm 74 years old. I've been fighting these battles since I was a teenager. Can you even imagine how exhausted I am to have to fight these battles all over again? Except now I don't have the money or the ability to demonstrate since it's a challenge just to get down the stairs. Completely exhausted.
It’s going to be a steep climb due to the extreme flavor of bureaucracy that has been baked into our absurd public/private hybrid healthcare market. I don’t know if there will be a special animus that will come into play, but like almost all procedures outside the ER, the opening bid is “No.”
Jessica, you and I think alike on so many of these issues. Providing a more nuanced language and approach to abortion is part of why I have just published Without Permission, the first of a trilogy about a woman who provides abortion, tailored to the emotional needs of her patients, outside the laws of men, for three-quarters-of -a century. 40 years ago I wrote an essay discussing how the pro-choices movement was feeding the Anti-abortion forces by leaving breadcrumbs--as you might leave crumbs from a picnic. To me, the breadcrumbs were all the things we were afraid to talk about: life and death, abortion and race, the embryo & fetus, emotional/spiritual difficulties some women have after an abortion. So many things that were hard. It was easier to discuss things in a sort of legalistic and linear way. But as the director of an abortion clinic for nearly 20 years, and an abortion counselor for half-a-century, I believe we are stronger when we approach the experience of abortion with full emotional honesty and vulnerability--as a circle. Like most important human experiences, the circle can contain so many seemingly contradictory things like: grief and relief, right and wrong, shame and gratitude, fear and courage. Abortion is one word, but millions of disparate experiences. A woman who had a manual aspiration of a 5-week embryo did not have the same experience as a woman whose pregnancy was terminated at twenty four weeks because of fetal indications. A person who was raised in a critical, and religiously judgmental home who was taught from a young age that abortion is the same as murder, does not have the same perspective on abortion as someone raised in a liberal or feminist household. A woman who is so deeply ambivalent that she spends thousands of dollars, hours, and suffering to become pregnant through IVF, and then panics and wants an abortion, does not have the same chance to come to a sense of resolution about her decision as a woman who sees matter-of-factly that it is not best to bring a new life into the world through her body.
These examples can help remind us that the experience of abortion is a spectrum--not that each patient is someone where on the spectrum--but that each pregnancy is. The same women may feel one way about an abortion she had as a teenager, and another way about one she had when she was already a mother (as the majority of current abortion patients are.) It pains me that we generally leave women on their own to make moral/spiritual/ethical/religious sense of a choice she may never have imagined she would make. Abortion is the hole in the doughnut. The doughnut is the life the woman is saving--her own.
Jessica, I love you & your work to keep us informed. The “force” we are up against isn’t a polarized population, it is a minority group of radical people who are trying to stay in power. Democracy is too uncertain and messy for them— so many sub-groups to satisfy. The radicals, like the Nazis, believe in their own superiority and punish those who disagree. They will continue to use their dark money to control courts that will keep on stripping away rights that don’t fit their purposes. The only way to stop them is to reject their candidates and vote for democratic leaders in November. Votes for third parties or not voting at all help the radicals. Vote blue to restore our rights.
"what Americans truly believe about abortion" This is actually fairly complicated because what a lot of Americans believe depends on how much they have thought about it, and what questions they have asked. Most people have not thought about abortion in depth. The good news is that the more that people think about it, the more they tend to get to the conclusion that any regulation of abortion is problematic. There is yet another dimension that is left out, though, and that is the fact that -- barring a Republican victory in 2024 -- any abortion bans in the U.S. are likely to be state by state and not nationwide. State bans have specific consequences, for example driving out doctors. If voters are informed that abortion regulations tend to drive doctors out of state, thereby reducing the quality of prenatal care, their support for such regulation is likely to diminish further. It will only be those who equate abortion with murder (maybe something like 10 or 15 percent of the electorate) who will stick with abortion bans no matter what the consequences.
Yes, but sticking with the bans isn't really the problem; it's voters sticking with the Republican party (in spite of the bans) that is responsible for the entirety of the problem.
Yes, although that's a very small number of people. There is a very sizable portion of the electorate who qualifies as pro-choice in all of these polls but continues to regularly vote Republican. Otherwise Democrats would be getting two-thirds of the vote, or 80%, whatever number we want to use for how many Americans don't want restrictions on reproductive rights.
This is great news. Even though I’ve always been pro-choice, it wasn’t until Roe fell that I began to shed the shame, stigma and secrecy that I felt around abortion. Now I talk about it often with my friends and family. I even actually utter the word “abortion “! And, instead of believing there should be limits and it should be “ safe, legal, and rare,” I think it should be something a pregnant person decides with their doctor and politicians should not be involved. Maybe the rest of the country is starting to come along on that ride too, given that we are all learning everyday what the real impacts and complexity are surrounding abortion and bans.
I think her name is Lauren Miller(?) who testified to a Senate committee. I've seen clips of her testimony quite often. One line sticks with me: "My pregnancy was the possession of the state."
This gives me hope that we can demand more than just reinstating Roe. No one should ever have to beg for life-saving care at ANY time in their pregnancy. Share this with everyone you know.
Thanks so much for this reporting, Jessica! I certainly don’t expect to see it reported anywhere else.
It has to be more than reinstating Roe. It never seemed like the right time; but in 50 years, there should have been a time for the will to codify it through legislation. The intrusion of government should be the focus of Biden's campaign and every Democrat running for election.
Lesley, you are so right. Limiting access to abortion to X weeks is ridiculous and meant to deny abortions, which puts pregnant people at risk.
Whatever X is, it’s actually less time than X, because of the way the count is made. So six weeks (again, really not a full six weeks) is before most women know they are pregnant which is, of course, by design. Most pregnant women already have kids, so they may need to arrange for time off work, arrange child care and transportation, and fit into the doctor’s schedule. Anyone who has tried to get a doctor’s appointment knows it can be days or weeks before you can get in.
No woman who wants to be pregnant waits until the third trimester to end her pregnancy unless she has a good reason (like it could kill her to stay pregnant). She alone should decide if the reason is good enough, not the state, not anyone else.
Similarly, no woman who doesn’t want to be pregnant stays pregnant if she’s given the option to end her pregnancy sooner. The earlier it’s ended, the less complicated it is to do and recovery is swifter. It should be up to the woman based on accurate information from her trusted advisors.
It doesn’t matter if the limit is 6 weeks or 26 weeks. The purpose of the limit and other restrictions is to control women. The lower the number the harder it is for all women, especially low income women and minorities, to meet the limit, but that’s exactly why the extremists want a 6 week limit.
Women know what’s best for their families and what’s best for their own health. Infantilizing woman has to stop.
I know you know all of this. I am just filled with rage that lawmakers didn’t listen to medical experts and now that we are hearing the horror stories (which we all knew would naturally result from the bans) those same lawmakers aren’t lifting a finger to help make it better.
We need to vet the candidates and vote only for the ones that support women’s reproductive rights. The others have shown us they are willing to let women suffer and die — making them unsuitable for any elected office.
Roe was flawed, basing the trimester argument on "viability." What if non-viability presents itself past the arbitrary time period? The decision should be private between a woman and her doctor. At any point. Period.
My stance is that it is time we stop accepting compromises when it comes to women’s reproductive rights.
No woman stays pregnant and then, on a whim, decides to have an abortion.
The horror stories we hear are women who wanted to be pregnant, some even went through the ordeal (and expense) of IVF — they really, really wanted to be pregnant. But their pregnancy was doomed and became dangerous to continue.
The self-described “pro-life” group hears the same stories we all hear and they tell us the bans are working “as intended” — in fact they not only won’t fix this mess, but they want a national ban. They tell us they want to ban IVF and contraception!
Clearly, in calling themselves “pro-life” what they really mean is: LET THE WOMEN SUFFER AND DIE.
They are forced birthers, "pro-life" was a cheap marketing term.They love war, executions, and starving the poor, especially those who were forced by circumstances to have children they couldn't afford.
I’m angry, too. I know that currently lawmakers enjoy protection when their laws harm people, but I think that needs to change especially after reading that Florida lawmakers have approved cesareans outside of hospitals. That’s just outrageous and they know it.
We also need to change the minds of Democrats like Senators Warren and Baldwin and especially Biden, who seem content to restore Roe. No way should we settle for those inadequate protections. These people need to see this poll so they stop selling women short of full autonomy.
Restoring Roe would be a good start, but it’s not enough.
The SC had a “no undue burden” standard that never really was enforced. Republicans kept chip, chip, chipping away at our rights and imposing medically unnecessary hurdles to obtaining an abortion. Waiting periods. Hospital privileges for doctors. Medically unnecessary tests. Requirements to setup a clinic like an expensive medical-surgical center. Protestors with bullhorns to harass patients. None of it made women safer. It was all nonsense intended to shame and control women.
We should NOT be talking about expanding exceptions, we should be taking about eliminating bans — we don’t need exceptions if there are no bans.
Women should decide based upon the available accurate information provided by their trusted advisors.
We trust women to raise children. We must trust women to decide when, and if, we have children. We deserve accurate information about our options. Women, not the state, not a panel of doctors, not anyone else but the woman should make the final decision about the healthcare she receives.
Doctors should never be criminalized for providing quality medical care. Doctors should never be threatened with prison, fines, and loss of license for providing standard medical care when treating any patient.
Abortion on demand and without apology. It just works.
Now to figure out how to get voters to make their position on reproductive health care the deciding factor when they choose which candidates to vote for. That's been the problem all along.
There was a study posted on substack that claimed that being progressive was related to mental illness in college students. The measure of being progressive was being willing to shout down a speaker you didn't agree with. Duh!
Kind of off topic, but something that I have been concerned about for a long time. We have to stop letting them get away with calling abortion murder. This has been especially relevant as we are seeing the radical abortion laws in places like Texas. The Supreme Court in Texas is willing to let women die from problem pregnancies to protect the belief that abortion is wrong under all circumstances. This is what happens with absolutistic thinking. People die. The same thing is happening with guns. When people have an absolute right to possess guns, we end up with mass shootings with no control over the weapons that allow this to happen. Witness the decision on bump stocks.
When laws put women's lives at risk, the moral and logical problem with the absolute belief that terminating a pregnancy is murder is revealed. Anti abortionists are faced with the fact that taking the position can lead to the death of another. The moral equivalence between the fetus and a living human being is false and needs to be challenged.
How do that? I don't know exactly. But I think we need to start the discussion.
In the WSJ today, they published an article about how all of those right-wing studies used by anti-abortion organizations have flawed science. One of the commenters had a suggestion to take the graphic showing the states that broke down access categories into t-shirts and billboards for November.
That is surprising being that the WSJ is owned by Rupert Murdoch.
Agreed. If I didn't see it, I wouldn't have believed it.
This was an excellent post - extremely important above all of your excellent posts. Thank you.
People do NOT like being told what to do, especially in a culture as individualistic as ours here in the US. The best argument around this issue is about freedom and choice and autonomy, about people deciding, not state legislators or Supreme Court "justices."
🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯
Depressingly, there's a third candidate besides legislatures and patient/doctor. Insurance company billing codes.
The insurance codes follow government positions, whether legislated or not. That's a battle we can take on, once we regain more power and win elections.
I'm 74 years old. I've been fighting these battles since I was a teenager. Can you even imagine how exhausted I am to have to fight these battles all over again? Except now I don't have the money or the ability to demonstrate since it's a challenge just to get down the stairs. Completely exhausted.
So glad you’re here Faith. I’m 63 and still doing what I can but it is exhausting. Sending you some blue sky 🌌 🟦🩵🩵
Thanks. We need to support each other.
It’s going to be a steep climb due to the extreme flavor of bureaucracy that has been baked into our absurd public/private hybrid healthcare market. I don’t know if there will be a special animus that will come into play, but like almost all procedures outside the ER, the opening bid is “No.”
I know.....
Jessica, you and I think alike on so many of these issues. Providing a more nuanced language and approach to abortion is part of why I have just published Without Permission, the first of a trilogy about a woman who provides abortion, tailored to the emotional needs of her patients, outside the laws of men, for three-quarters-of -a century. 40 years ago I wrote an essay discussing how the pro-choices movement was feeding the Anti-abortion forces by leaving breadcrumbs--as you might leave crumbs from a picnic. To me, the breadcrumbs were all the things we were afraid to talk about: life and death, abortion and race, the embryo & fetus, emotional/spiritual difficulties some women have after an abortion. So many things that were hard. It was easier to discuss things in a sort of legalistic and linear way. But as the director of an abortion clinic for nearly 20 years, and an abortion counselor for half-a-century, I believe we are stronger when we approach the experience of abortion with full emotional honesty and vulnerability--as a circle. Like most important human experiences, the circle can contain so many seemingly contradictory things like: grief and relief, right and wrong, shame and gratitude, fear and courage. Abortion is one word, but millions of disparate experiences. A woman who had a manual aspiration of a 5-week embryo did not have the same experience as a woman whose pregnancy was terminated at twenty four weeks because of fetal indications. A person who was raised in a critical, and religiously judgmental home who was taught from a young age that abortion is the same as murder, does not have the same perspective on abortion as someone raised in a liberal or feminist household. A woman who is so deeply ambivalent that she spends thousands of dollars, hours, and suffering to become pregnant through IVF, and then panics and wants an abortion, does not have the same chance to come to a sense of resolution about her decision as a woman who sees matter-of-factly that it is not best to bring a new life into the world through her body.
These examples can help remind us that the experience of abortion is a spectrum--not that each patient is someone where on the spectrum--but that each pregnancy is. The same women may feel one way about an abortion she had as a teenager, and another way about one she had when she was already a mother (as the majority of current abortion patients are.) It pains me that we generally leave women on their own to make moral/spiritual/ethical/religious sense of a choice she may never have imagined she would make. Abortion is the hole in the doughnut. The doughnut is the life the woman is saving--her own.
Thank you 😊
Jessica, I love you & your work to keep us informed. The “force” we are up against isn’t a polarized population, it is a minority group of radical people who are trying to stay in power. Democracy is too uncertain and messy for them— so many sub-groups to satisfy. The radicals, like the Nazis, believe in their own superiority and punish those who disagree. They will continue to use their dark money to control courts that will keep on stripping away rights that don’t fit their purposes. The only way to stop them is to reject their candidates and vote for democratic leaders in November. Votes for third parties or not voting at all help the radicals. Vote blue to restore our rights.
Thank you! You said very well, those who want to control us, want a Theocracy, they are a small part of our population.
Thank you, Joyce!!
"what Americans truly believe about abortion" This is actually fairly complicated because what a lot of Americans believe depends on how much they have thought about it, and what questions they have asked. Most people have not thought about abortion in depth. The good news is that the more that people think about it, the more they tend to get to the conclusion that any regulation of abortion is problematic. There is yet another dimension that is left out, though, and that is the fact that -- barring a Republican victory in 2024 -- any abortion bans in the U.S. are likely to be state by state and not nationwide. State bans have specific consequences, for example driving out doctors. If voters are informed that abortion regulations tend to drive doctors out of state, thereby reducing the quality of prenatal care, their support for such regulation is likely to diminish further. It will only be those who equate abortion with murder (maybe something like 10 or 15 percent of the electorate) who will stick with abortion bans no matter what the consequences.
Yes, but sticking with the bans isn't really the problem; it's voters sticking with the Republican party (in spite of the bans) that is responsible for the entirety of the problem.
Yes, especially those who vote split ticket, thinking a democratic party president, needs kept in check by republican senators.
Also, we badly need split ticket voters in Ohio and Montana this year to have any shot at the Senate. I'm not optimistic :(
Yes, although that's a very small number of people. There is a very sizable portion of the electorate who qualifies as pro-choice in all of these polls but continues to regularly vote Republican. Otherwise Democrats would be getting two-thirds of the vote, or 80%, whatever number we want to use for how many Americans don't want restrictions on reproductive rights.
This is great news. Even though I’ve always been pro-choice, it wasn’t until Roe fell that I began to shed the shame, stigma and secrecy that I felt around abortion. Now I talk about it often with my friends and family. I even actually utter the word “abortion “! And, instead of believing there should be limits and it should be “ safe, legal, and rare,” I think it should be something a pregnant person decides with their doctor and politicians should not be involved. Maybe the rest of the country is starting to come along on that ride too, given that we are all learning everyday what the real impacts and complexity are surrounding abortion and bans.
It is simply put, a medical procedure. And it is ultimately no one else's decision but the one carrying the fetus.
I think her name is Lauren Miller(?) who testified to a Senate committee. I've seen clips of her testimony quite often. One line sticks with me: "My pregnancy was the possession of the state."
This gives me hope that we can demand more than just reinstating Roe. No one should ever have to beg for life-saving care at ANY time in their pregnancy. Share this with everyone you know.
Thanks so much for this reporting, Jessica! I certainly don’t expect to see it reported anywhere else.
I post it on other substacks to educate our allies.
It has to be more than reinstating Roe. It never seemed like the right time; but in 50 years, there should have been a time for the will to codify it through legislation. The intrusion of government should be the focus of Biden's campaign and every Democrat running for election.
Lesley, you are so right. Limiting access to abortion to X weeks is ridiculous and meant to deny abortions, which puts pregnant people at risk.
Whatever X is, it’s actually less time than X, because of the way the count is made. So six weeks (again, really not a full six weeks) is before most women know they are pregnant which is, of course, by design. Most pregnant women already have kids, so they may need to arrange for time off work, arrange child care and transportation, and fit into the doctor’s schedule. Anyone who has tried to get a doctor’s appointment knows it can be days or weeks before you can get in.
No woman who wants to be pregnant waits until the third trimester to end her pregnancy unless she has a good reason (like it could kill her to stay pregnant). She alone should decide if the reason is good enough, not the state, not anyone else.
Similarly, no woman who doesn’t want to be pregnant stays pregnant if she’s given the option to end her pregnancy sooner. The earlier it’s ended, the less complicated it is to do and recovery is swifter. It should be up to the woman based on accurate information from her trusted advisors.
It doesn’t matter if the limit is 6 weeks or 26 weeks. The purpose of the limit and other restrictions is to control women. The lower the number the harder it is for all women, especially low income women and minorities, to meet the limit, but that’s exactly why the extremists want a 6 week limit.
Women know what’s best for their families and what’s best for their own health. Infantilizing woman has to stop.
I know you know all of this. I am just filled with rage that lawmakers didn’t listen to medical experts and now that we are hearing the horror stories (which we all knew would naturally result from the bans) those same lawmakers aren’t lifting a finger to help make it better.
We need to vet the candidates and vote only for the ones that support women’s reproductive rights. The others have shown us they are willing to let women suffer and die — making them unsuitable for any elected office.
Roe was flawed, basing the trimester argument on "viability." What if non-viability presents itself past the arbitrary time period? The decision should be private between a woman and her doctor. At any point. Period.
I read the story on how “viability” was selected. If you’re interested, here’s the link:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/11/29/viability-standard-abortion-supreme-court-hammond/#
My stance is that it is time we stop accepting compromises when it comes to women’s reproductive rights.
No woman stays pregnant and then, on a whim, decides to have an abortion.
The horror stories we hear are women who wanted to be pregnant, some even went through the ordeal (and expense) of IVF — they really, really wanted to be pregnant. But their pregnancy was doomed and became dangerous to continue.
The self-described “pro-life” group hears the same stories we all hear and they tell us the bans are working “as intended” — in fact they not only won’t fix this mess, but they want a national ban. They tell us they want to ban IVF and contraception!
Clearly, in calling themselves “pro-life” what they really mean is: LET THE WOMEN SUFFER AND DIE.
They are forced birthers, "pro-life" was a cheap marketing term.They love war, executions, and starving the poor, especially those who were forced by circumstances to have children they couldn't afford.
I’m angry, too. I know that currently lawmakers enjoy protection when their laws harm people, but I think that needs to change especially after reading that Florida lawmakers have approved cesareans outside of hospitals. That’s just outrageous and they know it.
We also need to change the minds of Democrats like Senators Warren and Baldwin and especially Biden, who seem content to restore Roe. No way should we settle for those inadequate protections. These people need to see this poll so they stop selling women short of full autonomy.
Ofc! Though I hope it gets picked up - Tresa and the folks at PerryUndem are topnotch and deserve all the coverage
Restoring Roe would be a good start, but it’s not enough.
The SC had a “no undue burden” standard that never really was enforced. Republicans kept chip, chip, chipping away at our rights and imposing medically unnecessary hurdles to obtaining an abortion. Waiting periods. Hospital privileges for doctors. Medically unnecessary tests. Requirements to setup a clinic like an expensive medical-surgical center. Protestors with bullhorns to harass patients. None of it made women safer. It was all nonsense intended to shame and control women.
We should NOT be talking about expanding exceptions, we should be taking about eliminating bans — we don’t need exceptions if there are no bans.
Women should decide based upon the available accurate information provided by their trusted advisors.
We trust women to raise children. We must trust women to decide when, and if, we have children. We deserve accurate information about our options. Women, not the state, not a panel of doctors, not anyone else but the woman should make the final decision about the healthcare she receives.
Doctors should never be criminalized for providing quality medical care. Doctors should never be threatened with prison, fines, and loss of license for providing standard medical care when treating any patient.
Abortion on demand and without apology. It just works.
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
As Lauren Miller testified in the Senate committee, "Exceptions are a fiction. I wasn't dead enough to get the health care I needed in TX."
YES!! 👏👏👏👏
Now to figure out how to get voters to make their position on reproductive health care the deciding factor when they choose which candidates to vote for. That's been the problem all along.
YES YES YES THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOU.
"we need that information to fight for something better than ‘restoration’: freedom." - JV
🙏❤️
*hugs* if you want them, we are in this together.
Oh I'm so glad that it helped! And for what it's worth big girls cry too ;)