My husband read one of my substack entries and was shocked that there is even a chance that birth control could be banned. How do we get everybody who is pro-choice and pro-birth control to realize what is going on, figure out how their reps/senators vote, and vote accordingly. I was talking to a friend who regularly rants about the former guy and she didn't even know who her U.S. rep was and he sucks....yes, Rob Wittman sucks. I'm in Virginia and the Governor sucks too. I guess as long as people get out and vote for president, they will likely vote D down the ticket, but people need to realize what power the people in the house and senate (on both the federal and state level) have. Pro-choice voters in Virginia in November 2023 enabled Dems to keep the senate and flip the house. https://talkaboutchoice.substack.com/p/republican-governor-glenn-youngkin
I foresee a Republican policy on contraception that will ban any method used by women but preserve condoms so that men exclusively have control. It would be in keeping with their ongoing debasement of women.
Youth Reproductive Equity.org has released Julie Maslowsky, Laura Lindberg, and Emily S. Mann’s report, “Adolescence Post-Dobbs: A Policy-Driven Research Agenda for Minor Adolescents and Abortion,” (May 7, 2024).
The news media coverage of today’s Senate contraception vote was exhausting and dangerous.
Reading just a handful of articles:
- Democrats only held the vote because it’s an election year. This isn’t sincere it’s just political motivations.
- Republicans have similar legislation they like better.
- He said, she said. Who can tell what’s real.
- Contraception isn’t under any threat, so why bother.
🤮 Corporate media sucks so bad. I really wish progressives would create their own NYT equivalent because these organizations are hopeless. Many good reporters, terrible editors and worse owners.
Teen Vogue also has a full profile of Mark Robinson, candidate for Lt. Governor in NC. He's a true humdinger. For me, he gives off a violent and abusive vibe.
What happens when abortions are banned with no exceptions for rape (even for young girls) and contraceptives are banned? Which states have the most rape related pregnancies (RPP) and ban abortions? Who are the Republicans stripping women of their freedoms? Click on this StoryMap.
Is the ban on Plan B more junk science from the Right? I thought Plan B worked by delaying ovulation. It's always been clearly stated that if a pregnancy has occurred, EC will not end the pregnancy. Why aren't clinicians correcting this interpretation in real time? Or, is the mechanism more ambiguous than I am aware of ? Anyone?
I think they might know more than we think they do. But God's WORD supersedes science. I feel that some people are looking for a way to feel good about themselves so they dominate others with their own beliefs and their God to make themselves seem righteous. No, no, no, that is NOT how you help oneself feel good about yourself. People who engage in this toxic behavior must be stopped and sadly many of them are in positions of power. We must vote them out.
"Plan B One-Step contains the hormone levonorgestrel — a progestin — which can prevent ovulation, block fertilization or keep a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus."
--Mayo Clinic
So, because Plan B can keep a fertilized egg from implanting, they see that as an abortion of a life. They're crazy. They're fanatical. They are prioritizing microscopic cells that have the *potential* to be a human over the actual human that is already born and enmeshed in their life. They are NUTS. They will never stop. We have to stop them by never voting for anyone who even tangentially supports this oppression and subjugation.
Because the holy male penis is sancrosanct, and should never be regulated in any tenet of the patriarchy. They'll just make them impossible to get once they get control. Until then they want all the men on their side.
When there are no OB/GYNs left in their states, even "good Christian women" are going to have a hard time getting prenatal care. It's so damn short-sighted, in addition to radical and cruel.
Well, then, the so called good Christian women can suffer. Let their godly husbands explain to crying children that Mommy went to Heaven because baby zygote was more important.
I'm done playing nice with these people, and with cowardly politicians who are afraid to stand up for women.
That is exactly what they want, so they can funnel more tax-payer money to their useless crisis pregnancy centers, where they have no medical training, but they'll give you a coupon for diapers.
Not only can pregnancy quickly turn into an emergency, but the helicopter company is happy to take your $50,000. Which your insurer (if you have insurance, that is) is going to fight tooth and nail.
A friend of mine had twins and about 3 weeks after their birth, the smaller one wasn't keeping any food down. They took him to the local emergency room, where the doctor said he had to be transferred immediately to Oklahoma City for surgery, because his stomach had ulcerated and the scar tissue was blocking him from getting food into his stomach. So he went, via helicopter, spent two weeks in the hospital and healed well (now a healthy teenager).
The insurance company said they weren't going to pay because it wasn't a "life threatening emergency". I told her to fight it and it took 3 years and a lawyer, but they eventually paid most of it.
I mean, a 3 week old baby who can't eat seems pretty serious to me, but what do I know?
This was many years before the current craziness, but a friend of mine was rushed to the ER with a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. Since this was many years ago (and in New York) she had no problem getting the ruptured follicle removed, and she was even able to carry a subsequent wanted pregnancy to term. The only problem was her insurance company arguing that a ruptured ectopic pregnancy was not an emergency, so she should have gone to her regular doctor first for an ER referral.
From the senate GOP: “There is no threat to access to contraception, which is legal in every state and required by law to be offered at no cost by health insurers, and it's disgusting that Democrats are fearmongering on this important issue to score cheap political points.”
If there is no threat then SIGN it Republicans! Prove it.
If you read it through a reality translator it says: "There is a huge threat, because we want it gone, it is only legal because we haven't quite figured out how to sneak it by the democratic party voters who are defending it."
I'm surprised they didn't use their favorite trope of "states' rights"....... that's their favorite guise to hide behind to then implement their bigoted, draconian and repressive laws.
The state came into the exam room in 2014 in TN, and physicians and patients have paid the price since. Every state followed suit. It’ll be hard to get them out, but it must happen. Women must be protected, and other groups as well.
In Kansas, back in the early 2000s, the state legislature passed laws regulating the size of the doorways in abortion clinics, the height of the counters, how many air conditioners, how big the closets had to be, etc. For no other reason than to make it overly burdensome for clinics to operate. Took something like 5 years to get rid of that crap.
If they can't win legally, they'll find another way to restrict abortion and contraception.
Similar strategy occurred with pain care but there was no momentum to change anything, so most of the clinics in the state (nation) closed or switched to procedures only; poor patient access now for pain management and even primary care. Primary care physicians are refusing to see patients with a history of pain who want to establish care for other problems now. When I read the quote about pregnant patients being “radioactive” to ERs I thought, oh yes, I recognize all of this play for play.
Democracy without human rights is a farce. Voters have already condemned half the country, and they may well take the rest in November. We look at the OBGYN numbers, for instance, and say it's not sustainable, but what's stopping it? Who's stopping it? It absolutely IS possible for voters to destroy their own country.
Exactly - I just got the book Universal Human Rights this week. I haven't started reading it yet but it completely ties into physical liberty, body autonomy, democracy, etc.
Human rights are far more important than democracy. Democracy is thought to be the best tool to preserve human rights, but when one group wants to oppress another, they can still do it in a democracy if they have the numbers to win elections.
Someone please explain that to Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Viktor Orbán even. The problem is that, given the opportunity, humans will vote to restrict the human rights of other humans. I don't know how you prevent that when humans have the will to do it. You have to squelch that will. Democracy alone is nowhere near enough. You don't even need the more obvious majoritarian examples I gave. Look at the conditions for women in India, for example. They can vote, but you can't say with a straight face their human rights are protected.
You know, to be precise, the evangelicals are opposed to any sex outside of marriage, but evangelicals have no objection to the use of birth control within marriage. It is only the Catholic Church that objects to the use of birth control within marriage.
When you hear of people seeking to make birth control illegal for everyone, you are talking about Catholics, not anyone else.
The fundamentalists all are forced birthers look at the Duggars with 19 children, which is obscene, given he was getting state support for over three quarters of the time, until he made so much on the show.
Married women have the same risks as anyone else for complications during pregnancy. Sex for procreation in no way guarantees a healthy mother and newborn.
But these conservatives make a fetish of the virtuous woman who sacrifices her life for her baby. A good woman is a woman who does not value her own life. They believe women should embrace suffering and death as their god given duty.
Very good point, Celeste! All of the stories I've heard of women who needed help during or after a miscarriage or that had a fetal anomaly were married, now that I think about it.
Every ad they played in OH referendum race last summer should be played in every state. Those ads worked around privacy and what happens in your bedroom.
My husband read one of my substack entries and was shocked that there is even a chance that birth control could be banned. How do we get everybody who is pro-choice and pro-birth control to realize what is going on, figure out how their reps/senators vote, and vote accordingly. I was talking to a friend who regularly rants about the former guy and she didn't even know who her U.S. rep was and he sucks....yes, Rob Wittman sucks. I'm in Virginia and the Governor sucks too. I guess as long as people get out and vote for president, they will likely vote D down the ticket, but people need to realize what power the people in the house and senate (on both the federal and state level) have. Pro-choice voters in Virginia in November 2023 enabled Dems to keep the senate and flip the house. https://talkaboutchoice.substack.com/p/republican-governor-glenn-youngkin
I'm in Florida, and I love that you guys won back your state.
I foresee a Republican policy on contraception that will ban any method used by women but preserve condoms so that men exclusively have control. It would be in keeping with their ongoing debasement of women.
Youth Reproductive Equity.org has released Julie Maslowsky, Laura Lindberg, and Emily S. Mann’s report, “Adolescence Post-Dobbs: A Policy-Driven Research Agenda for Minor Adolescents and Abortion,” (May 7, 2024).
The 58-minute webinar can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/Acz5V-_LYcY.
Executive summary of the report: https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/193163/Executive%20Summary-%20Adolescence%20Post-Dobbs.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y
Full report can be downloaded at: https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/193163/Adolescence%20Post-Dobbs%20A%20Policy-Driven%20Research%20Agenda%20for%20Minors%20and%20Abortion.pdf?sequence=5&isAllowed=y
The news media coverage of today’s Senate contraception vote was exhausting and dangerous.
Reading just a handful of articles:
- Democrats only held the vote because it’s an election year. This isn’t sincere it’s just political motivations.
- Republicans have similar legislation they like better.
- He said, she said. Who can tell what’s real.
- Contraception isn’t under any threat, so why bother.
🤮 Corporate media sucks so bad. I really wish progressives would create their own NYT equivalent because these organizations are hopeless. Many good reporters, terrible editors and worse owners.
Me too, I read "the New Republic" they are very progressive. Wonkette is good if you like snark and delightful profanity.
The target of the fast one are dumb men.
Teen Vogue also has a full profile of Mark Robinson, candidate for Lt. Governor in NC. He's a true humdinger. For me, he gives off a violent and abusive vibe.
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/mark-robinson-who-is-north-carolina-republican#intcid=recommendations_teen-vogue-bottom-recirc-v4_b5160228-04da-486a-a3bd-b7451e9a8b35_entity-topic-similarity-v2
He absolutely does. I thought the same: well there's a rapist "Look what you made me do!~"was going to be what he tells you afterward.
What does it say when "Teen Vogue" is better at facts and pertinent information than the NYT?
What happens when abortions are banned with no exceptions for rape (even for young girls) and contraceptives are banned? Which states have the most rape related pregnancies (RPP) and ban abortions? Who are the Republicans stripping women of their freedoms? Click on this StoryMap.
https://thedemlabs.org/2024/06/05/republicans-vote-to-ban-emergency-contraception-consequences-mapped/
It's my state TEXAS the belly of the Beast! 26,000. I didn't have to look it up. I know it. Horrible!!
From Lyz. I SEE THE PROBLEM, THERE'S REPUBLICANS IN YOUR VAGINA.
https://dreamsofabetter25.substack.com/p/sen-gop-votes-down-womens-access?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
Is the ban on Plan B more junk science from the Right? I thought Plan B worked by delaying ovulation. It's always been clearly stated that if a pregnancy has occurred, EC will not end the pregnancy. Why aren't clinicians correcting this interpretation in real time? Or, is the mechanism more ambiguous than I am aware of ? Anyone?
The fundamentalists don't understand biology, or how human reproduction actually works. Then again, they just make shit up as they go along.
I think they might know more than we think they do. But God's WORD supersedes science. I feel that some people are looking for a way to feel good about themselves so they dominate others with their own beliefs and their God to make themselves seem righteous. No, no, no, that is NOT how you help oneself feel good about yourself. People who engage in this toxic behavior must be stopped and sadly many of them are in positions of power. We must vote them out.
That’s going to be hard, because we, never voted them in.
"Plan B One-Step contains the hormone levonorgestrel — a progestin — which can prevent ovulation, block fertilization or keep a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus."
--Mayo Clinic
So, because Plan B can keep a fertilized egg from implanting, they see that as an abortion of a life. They're crazy. They're fanatical. They are prioritizing microscopic cells that have the *potential* to be a human over the actual human that is already born and enmeshed in their life. They are NUTS. They will never stop. We have to stop them by never voting for anyone who even tangentially supports this oppression and subjugation.
The forced birthers will always prioritize microscopic cells over living women because they don't value women for anything other than breeding.
Vote as if your, and your friend's, daughters, sisters lives depend on it.
🎯Ever so much this^^^
Thanks., ARS.
Also wondering why they haven't gone after vasectomies, all those bazillion lost lives.
Because the holy male penis is sancrosanct, and should never be regulated in any tenet of the patriarchy. They'll just make them impossible to get once they get control. Until then they want all the men on their side.
The forced birthers want to define all contraceptives as "abortifacients", so they can ban all of them.
But they never let facts get in the way of the "War on Abortion"!! Not when there are BABIES TO BE SAVED!
"Saved" so they sell them for the big bucks, to those nasty fundies, through the so-called xtian adoption agencies.
When there are no OB/GYNs left in their states, even "good Christian women" are going to have a hard time getting prenatal care. It's so damn short-sighted, in addition to radical and cruel.
Well, then, the so called good Christian women can suffer. Let their godly husbands explain to crying children that Mommy went to Heaven because baby zygote was more important.
I'm done playing nice with these people, and with cowardly politicians who are afraid to stand up for women.
I live in the rural west and we have ONE Ob/gyn to serve SW Kansas, and the western OK panhandle.
Consequently, about 85% of pregnant women out here have c-sections to avoid risk.
If something goes wrong, the closest hospital with a NICU is an hour away by helicopter.
Rural America is the last place you want to be living if you have a health crisis, and for some women, pregnancy can quickly turn into one.
That is exactly what they want, so they can funnel more tax-payer money to their useless crisis pregnancy centers, where they have no medical training, but they'll give you a coupon for diapers.
Not only can pregnancy quickly turn into an emergency, but the helicopter company is happy to take your $50,000. Which your insurer (if you have insurance, that is) is going to fight tooth and nail.
A friend of mine had twins and about 3 weeks after their birth, the smaller one wasn't keeping any food down. They took him to the local emergency room, where the doctor said he had to be transferred immediately to Oklahoma City for surgery, because his stomach had ulcerated and the scar tissue was blocking him from getting food into his stomach. So he went, via helicopter, spent two weeks in the hospital and healed well (now a healthy teenager).
The insurance company said they weren't going to pay because it wasn't a "life threatening emergency". I told her to fight it and it took 3 years and a lawyer, but they eventually paid most of it.
I mean, a 3 week old baby who can't eat seems pretty serious to me, but what do I know?
This was many years before the current craziness, but a friend of mine was rushed to the ER with a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. Since this was many years ago (and in New York) she had no problem getting the ruptured follicle removed, and she was even able to carry a subsequent wanted pregnancy to term. The only problem was her insurance company arguing that a ruptured ectopic pregnancy was not an emergency, so she should have gone to her regular doctor first for an ER referral.
😱That's horrible.
From the senate GOP: “There is no threat to access to contraception, which is legal in every state and required by law to be offered at no cost by health insurers, and it's disgusting that Democrats are fearmongering on this important issue to score cheap political points.”
If there is no threat then SIGN it Republicans! Prove it.
If you read it through a reality translator it says: "There is a huge threat, because we want it gone, it is only legal because we haven't quite figured out how to sneak it by the democratic party voters who are defending it."
This broke my irony meter:
"...many Republicans said they opposed the legislation as unnecessary and government overreach."
"government overreach." = anything we don't like, that protects people other than us.
I'm surprised they didn't use their favorite trope of "states' rights"....... that's their favorite guise to hide behind to then implement their bigoted, draconian and repressive laws.
The state came into the exam room in 2014 in TN, and physicians and patients have paid the price since. Every state followed suit. It’ll be hard to get them out, but it must happen. Women must be protected, and other groups as well.
In Kansas, back in the early 2000s, the state legislature passed laws regulating the size of the doorways in abortion clinics, the height of the counters, how many air conditioners, how big the closets had to be, etc. For no other reason than to make it overly burdensome for clinics to operate. Took something like 5 years to get rid of that crap.
If they can't win legally, they'll find another way to restrict abortion and contraception.
Similar strategy occurred with pain care but there was no momentum to change anything, so most of the clinics in the state (nation) closed or switched to procedures only; poor patient access now for pain management and even primary care. Primary care physicians are refusing to see patients with a history of pain who want to establish care for other problems now. When I read the quote about pregnant patients being “radioactive” to ERs I thought, oh yes, I recognize all of this play for play.
Democracy without human rights is a farce. Voters have already condemned half the country, and they may well take the rest in November. We look at the OBGYN numbers, for instance, and say it's not sustainable, but what's stopping it? Who's stopping it? It absolutely IS possible for voters to destroy their own country.
Exactly - I just got the book Universal Human Rights this week. I haven't started reading it yet but it completely ties into physical liberty, body autonomy, democracy, etc.
Human rights are far more important than democracy. Democracy is thought to be the best tool to preserve human rights, but when one group wants to oppress another, they can still do it in a democracy if they have the numbers to win elections.
There is no democracy without human rights.
Someone please explain that to Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Viktor Orbán even. The problem is that, given the opportunity, humans will vote to restrict the human rights of other humans. I don't know how you prevent that when humans have the will to do it. You have to squelch that will. Democracy alone is nowhere near enough. You don't even need the more obvious majoritarian examples I gave. Look at the conditions for women in India, for example. They can vote, but you can't say with a straight face their human rights are protected.
Republicans only want you to have sex for procreation because it's what their evangelical community's religion says.
Yes, they have said they will ban recreational sex.
You know, to be precise, the evangelicals are opposed to any sex outside of marriage, but evangelicals have no objection to the use of birth control within marriage. It is only the Catholic Church that objects to the use of birth control within marriage.
When you hear of people seeking to make birth control illegal for everyone, you are talking about Catholics, not anyone else.
Well, the Catholic church is always in need of more children who can be prey for their clergy.
The fundamentalists all are forced birthers look at the Duggars with 19 children, which is obscene, given he was getting state support for over three quarters of the time, until he made so much on the show.
Married women have the same risks as anyone else for complications during pregnancy. Sex for procreation in no way guarantees a healthy mother and newborn.
I think they view it as a way to just get a younger model, like they did in the old days.
But these conservatives make a fetish of the virtuous woman who sacrifices her life for her baby. A good woman is a woman who does not value her own life. They believe women should embrace suffering and death as their god given duty.
Very good point, Celeste! All of the stories I've heard of women who needed help during or after a miscarriage or that had a fetal anomaly were married, now that I think about it.
Yes, married and deliberately pregnant. Wanting children.
Correct but if a mother dies (or fetus dies), they accept that as God's will.
Yeah, no big deal.
Every ad they played in OH referendum race last summer should be played in every state. Those ads worked around privacy and what happens in your bedroom.
Shocking! (Said no one ever)