I'm ready to look for that time machine back to the 70's. So sick of characters like Richard Cash trying to interfere in other people's lives. The whole idea of "personhood" is ignorant and insane. Trying to center the clump of cells instead of the woman is the cruelest, craziest thing I have ever heard of.
So if they ban and criminalize IUDS, does that mean a woman who has an IUD is committing a crime if she travels to or through that state? Will it be a crime for a woman to cross state lines in order to get an IUD?
When are you going to write about the growing number of American women (and men) who are choosing sterilization in order to escape the growing nightmare of the American anti-abortion movement?
He shook too many of them down for campaign "donations" towards his inaugural ball, and aborted presidential campaign. He has made too many enemies. The knives are out for him.
Thank you Jessica for keeping us updated on this stuff. It’s so horrible, but the first step is knowing about it. Then we need to talk to everyone in our lives about it. Politicians benefit when we don’t talk to each other
I got three boxes of Plan B for my daughters yesterday. Starting to stockpile. Expiration dates are 2027. I can not believe we are living in this nightmare.
The chemo story this past week really threw me. The nerve! We are just objects to these people. Or invisible. I can't tell.
More and more, republicans are working to defy the will of voters. Missouri is trying to do it by refusing to enact a pro abortion referendum. North Caroline is currently doing it by refusing to certify the November results in a state Supreme Court election where the democrat narrowly defeated the republican- this, despite two recounts and the election board approving the recounts! The republican looser is asking the North Carolina Supreme Court to retroactively throw out 60,000 voter ballots.
Republicans in this country are increasingly lawless. And their lawlessness is absolutely brazen. Just look at what the trump-musk regime has done in only 17 days. We should expect more draconian abortion laws accompanied by increasing voter suppression and god knows what else.
And in SC, the Republican majority legislature won’t even let voters have a say. They know abortion bans are deeply unpopular so they won’t risk voters enshrining abortion rights interstate law.
Goddamn S.C. and all other states that have bans.( And something needs to be done about Kacsmaryk.) I'll NEVER go to those fucking states again. Please don't allow your children to go to college in thase states.
I totally agree!! Three Republican state senators lost their seats in their primaries after they stopped a total ban several years ago. We now have only 2 women in the State Senate out of 46 members. Absolutely shameful!!
I feel like we need a repetitious social media blitz campaign that highlights just one of these legislative monsters each day with whatever disastrous bill they put forth. The graphic design should be exquisite, but match old school antiabortion signs in shock value. Very sad to see the erosion of science, education, and critical thinking skills happening everywhere. It’s hard to believe it’s even real. Please take care.
"Well, in SB 323, ‘contraception’ would no longer mean something that prevents pregnancy—but something that prevents fertilization."
I asked Google to define contraception and I get,
"the deliberate use of artificial methods or other techniques to prevent pregnancy as a consequence of sexual intercourse. The major forms of artificial contraception are barrier methods, of which the most common is the condom; the contraceptive pill, which contains synthetic sex hormones that prevent ovulation in the female; intrauterine devices, such as the coil, which prevent the fertilized ovum from implanting in the uterus; and male or female sterilization." (Notice how it describes the IUD.)
If you check out the link above to SB 323, (Here it is again, https://legiscan.com/SC/text/S0323/2025 ) it's a real train wreck. The term "unborn child" gets 40 hits when the page is searched with ctrl-f. It looks like it has been agonizingly edited over and over again, trying to sound like it knows what it is talking about.
The whole "unborn child" thing is a legal nightmare, I'm sure. There is already a legal definition of "child" and I don't think it weds smoothly with some legal notion of an unborn child.
About mifepristone being made a controlled substance. What about the manufacturers? Are they taking this laying down? Everyone complains about the power of big pharm. Where are they when we need them? And why aren't the antis playing the big evil big pharm hand?
Many people believe that IUDs are the only contraceptive that prevent implantation, but birth control pills can, too, by making the uterus a “hostile environment” for a fertilized egg. This bill wouldn’t just ban IUDs but it could ban BC pills, too. When a similar iteration of this bill was introduced and debated in 2022 immediately after Dobbs, we asked legislators if they planned inspections and removal of all IUDs. Of course, they smirk like I’m stupid. But, hey, they wrote this crap.
I went through many steps in the early 1970s to remain childfree. It was my choice & my then husband’s. I had been on birth control pills for about 8 years & didn’t want to continue. Reading all this and having worked at NARAL & PPFA, I envision more: either tubal ligations [mine was the first laparoscopic - “belly button” one - in the state where I lived then - requiring multiple written “permissions” (spouses + 2 psychiatrists) OR being outlawed. At the time of mine, woman’s age x number of children had to = 120 for most docs & hospitals to perform the procedure. I was 26 thus 5+ children. (Would mostly male legislatures outlaw vasectomies??) Gratefully the PPFA doc knew me & after discussion, respected the decision & performed it in his office.
My work and life have tried to do what I can to ensure rights to ensure appropriate healthcare for women. Sarah Weddington, who I got to know through my work, and who I miss terribly, & I talked in the ‘90s about the rights eroding. That younger people, women in particular, never knew a life without Roe or contraception more than abstinence. I’m not sure even those my age (late 70s) are aware enough.
Joan, things haven’t changed. I hear from so many young women today who have been denied a tubal ligation. Doctors - in 2025 - who still insist on written permission from a spouse, insist that a woman is too young to make that decision no matter how many children she may already have, or she’ll surely change her mind. Once again, it comes down to others believing we’re incapable of making our own decisions about pregnancy, childbirth and abortion.
Yup, can confirm. Southern, religious male Gyns usually refuse to do them,( not all obviously) but we knew who to avoid getting care from in the OR where I worked.
This is what I feared. It is rarely part of the conversation on reproductive choice. If a mind is changed, there is adoption. I’ve never regretted my decision. Remarried to someone who too never wanted children who said when we met I should know that. When told my choice it was the clincher on our shared values.
You’re on the very front lines, Vicki. Other than donations and posting what can I do?
Thank you for this excellent summary of SC’s newest abortion ban on steroids. We are living in hell. Its sponsor, Sen. Richard Cash, was the director of Personhood SC before being elected to the senate. He said he ran for the senate for the sole purpose of banning abortion. “And to protect guns,” he added. Make that make sense.
So many options for those of us who have an abortion: firing squad, electric chair or lethal injection by some unknown concoction. 🎶 And that’s what I love about the South! 🎶
I'm ready to look for that time machine back to the 70's. So sick of characters like Richard Cash trying to interfere in other people's lives. The whole idea of "personhood" is ignorant and insane. Trying to center the clump of cells instead of the woman is the cruelest, craziest thing I have ever heard of.
So if they ban and criminalize IUDS, does that mean a woman who has an IUD is committing a crime if she travels to or through that state? Will it be a crime for a woman to cross state lines in order to get an IUD?
When are you going to write about the growing number of American women (and men) who are choosing sterilization in order to escape the growing nightmare of the American anti-abortion movement?
It sounds like Missouri’s “enhancing democracy” bill was patterned after Florida’s BAN.
To note about Florida, there is a lot of infighting in the GOP and DeSantis is losing power.
The Legislature did not go along with his plan to essentially abolish citizen-led amendments in the special session….at least for now.
He shook too many of them down for campaign "donations" towards his inaugural ball, and aborted presidential campaign. He has made too many enemies. The knives are out for him.
Thank you Jessica for keeping us updated on this stuff. It’s so horrible, but the first step is knowing about it. Then we need to talk to everyone in our lives about it. Politicians benefit when we don’t talk to each other
I got three boxes of Plan B for my daughters yesterday. Starting to stockpile. Expiration dates are 2027. I can not believe we are living in this nightmare.
The chemo story this past week really threw me. The nerve! We are just objects to these people. Or invisible. I can't tell.
We are sex toys, that turn into incubators depending on their desire.
More and more, republicans are working to defy the will of voters. Missouri is trying to do it by refusing to enact a pro abortion referendum. North Caroline is currently doing it by refusing to certify the November results in a state Supreme Court election where the democrat narrowly defeated the republican- this, despite two recounts and the election board approving the recounts! The republican looser is asking the North Carolina Supreme Court to retroactively throw out 60,000 voter ballots.
Republicans in this country are increasingly lawless. And their lawlessness is absolutely brazen. Just look at what the trump-musk regime has done in only 17 days. We should expect more draconian abortion laws accompanied by increasing voter suppression and god knows what else.
And in SC, the Republican majority legislature won’t even let voters have a say. They know abortion bans are deeply unpopular so they won’t risk voters enshrining abortion rights interstate law.
Goddamn S.C. and all other states that have bans.( And something needs to be done about Kacsmaryk.) I'll NEVER go to those fucking states again. Please don't allow your children to go to college in thase states.
I totally agree!! Three Republican state senators lost their seats in their primaries after they stopped a total ban several years ago. We now have only 2 women in the State Senate out of 46 members. Absolutely shameful!!
I feel like we need a repetitious social media blitz campaign that highlights just one of these legislative monsters each day with whatever disastrous bill they put forth. The graphic design should be exquisite, but match old school antiabortion signs in shock value. Very sad to see the erosion of science, education, and critical thinking skills happening everywhere. It’s hard to believe it’s even real. Please take care.
I like the way you think, Linda!
Sometimes, I read your updates, Jessica, and I wonder why women who can choose to have sex (have autonomy and wealth) don’t just buy vibrators.
Excellent idea. Until men start to understand what barren means for them.
"Well, in SB 323, ‘contraception’ would no longer mean something that prevents pregnancy—but something that prevents fertilization."
I asked Google to define contraception and I get,
"the deliberate use of artificial methods or other techniques to prevent pregnancy as a consequence of sexual intercourse. The major forms of artificial contraception are barrier methods, of which the most common is the condom; the contraceptive pill, which contains synthetic sex hormones that prevent ovulation in the female; intrauterine devices, such as the coil, which prevent the fertilized ovum from implanting in the uterus; and male or female sterilization." (Notice how it describes the IUD.)
If you check out the link above to SB 323, (Here it is again, https://legiscan.com/SC/text/S0323/2025 ) it's a real train wreck. The term "unborn child" gets 40 hits when the page is searched with ctrl-f. It looks like it has been agonizingly edited over and over again, trying to sound like it knows what it is talking about.
The whole "unborn child" thing is a legal nightmare, I'm sure. There is already a legal definition of "child" and I don't think it weds smoothly with some legal notion of an unborn child.
About mifepristone being made a controlled substance. What about the manufacturers? Are they taking this laying down? Everyone complains about the power of big pharm. Where are they when we need them? And why aren't the antis playing the big evil big pharm hand?
Many people believe that IUDs are the only contraceptive that prevent implantation, but birth control pills can, too, by making the uterus a “hostile environment” for a fertilized egg. This bill wouldn’t just ban IUDs but it could ban BC pills, too. When a similar iteration of this bill was introduced and debated in 2022 immediately after Dobbs, we asked legislators if they planned inspections and removal of all IUDs. Of course, they smirk like I’m stupid. But, hey, they wrote this crap.
In the SC Legislature, who are those outspoken against this?
So much of it is racist. When one psychiatrist said “no” to me it was with “you’re the right people to have children” easily translated.
I went through many steps in the early 1970s to remain childfree. It was my choice & my then husband’s. I had been on birth control pills for about 8 years & didn’t want to continue. Reading all this and having worked at NARAL & PPFA, I envision more: either tubal ligations [mine was the first laparoscopic - “belly button” one - in the state where I lived then - requiring multiple written “permissions” (spouses + 2 psychiatrists) OR being outlawed. At the time of mine, woman’s age x number of children had to = 120 for most docs & hospitals to perform the procedure. I was 26 thus 5+ children. (Would mostly male legislatures outlaw vasectomies??) Gratefully the PPFA doc knew me & after discussion, respected the decision & performed it in his office.
My work and life have tried to do what I can to ensure rights to ensure appropriate healthcare for women. Sarah Weddington, who I got to know through my work, and who I miss terribly, & I talked in the ‘90s about the rights eroding. That younger people, women in particular, never knew a life without Roe or contraception more than abstinence. I’m not sure even those my age (late 70s) are aware enough.
Thus grateful for all YELLING the dangers.
I’ve reposted on FB & BlueSky. Calls. More calls.
@joan we must be friends! I’m eager to hear more about your work at NARAL and PPFA. I work for a PPFA affiliate now.
Joan, things haven’t changed. I hear from so many young women today who have been denied a tubal ligation. Doctors - in 2025 - who still insist on written permission from a spouse, insist that a woman is too young to make that decision no matter how many children she may already have, or she’ll surely change her mind. Once again, it comes down to others believing we’re incapable of making our own decisions about pregnancy, childbirth and abortion.
Yup, can confirm. Southern, religious male Gyns usually refuse to do them,( not all obviously) but we knew who to avoid getting care from in the OR where I worked.
This is what I feared. It is rarely part of the conversation on reproductive choice. If a mind is changed, there is adoption. I’ve never regretted my decision. Remarried to someone who too never wanted children who said when we met I should know that. When told my choice it was the clincher on our shared values.
You’re on the very front lines, Vicki. Other than donations and posting what can I do?
What in the First Amendment violation is this? Blatantly unconstitutional.
'Land of the free'??? only if you are white straight male.
Thank you for this excellent summary of SC’s newest abortion ban on steroids. We are living in hell. Its sponsor, Sen. Richard Cash, was the director of Personhood SC before being elected to the senate. He said he ran for the senate for the sole purpose of banning abortion. “And to protect guns,” he added. Make that make sense.
Maybe if tried for homicide after an abortion, there will be a firing squad, ignoring children and others being cared for by the convicted person.
So many options for those of us who have an abortion: firing squad, electric chair or lethal injection by some unknown concoction. 🎶 And that’s what I love about the South! 🎶
Laughing in great irony.