This is exactly why The Democracy Decree needs to move forward! Ignoring the will of the people is vile. Democratism.org advocates for eliminating the electoral college. Without them Democrats would have won almost every presidential election since Reagan. We need to make the People's Voice matter again! Majority of Americans believe in abortion rights and yet....
Please feel free to visit the site Democratism.org and see what you can do to volunteer or GET THE WORD OUT! there is another way!
I've been watching Jessica's Tik Toks for awhile, but just started getting her newsletter. I get Jessica Craven's newsletter too (Chop Wood Carry Water). I love all the information here and am so appreciative of the connection and the hard work that goes into all of this. I would also love a small space for regular Actions to take. Like a script to call representatives, or a Resist Bot text, or political races that need phone bank callers. It would be great to laser focus as a group on the daily/weekly so that our swell of voices could be louder and better heard.
I wanted to mention a paper I've written on how parental rights rhetoric is used to deny abortion access for minors - it includes a thank you to Jessica Valenti! The Political Language of Parental Rights: Abortion, Gender-Affirming Care, and Critical Race Theory https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4365970
This isn't technically addressing the story but popped in my head while I was reading it. Because the conservatives are so insidious, you have to try to think three conspiracies ahead.
I was thinking, they try to act like they’re not monsters so they add the “rape and incest exception.” False rape claims happen at about the same rate/ percentage as other false reports of crimes. And just like other false reports, they’re usually seen for what they are and settled there. But for some reason our culture doesn’t believe men rape, they just believe women lie about rape. So now that state after state is banning abortion, with the “humane” states leaving “exceptions” in place, a very, very desperate girl or woman might lie about a pregnancy in order to get an abortion. Considering she’d have to stand in front of a judge, odds are slim of that happening. A 10 yo was denied an abortion after being raped so…
BUT…now they can claim we’re all lying about rape just so we can get abortions. So the first time, possibly only time, a woman lies about rape to get an abortion, and it gets found out, that's it. They win. Because, they will claim, "See? Women lie about rape". So it didn’t happen one time because of a desperate woman or girl driven to lie by these abusive laws. It happens all the time and now they have yet another way of keeping women from reporting and another way to call us liars.
I really think if that awful Judge rules for banning mifepristone, his ruling should just be ignored. Not sure how Biden and the FDA could do it but there has to be a way not to be held hostage by these extremist’s judges.
I think reproductive justice should stop calling it fetal personhood and start calling it fetal coverture. Fetuses are a legal fiction conservatives made up to force women back into coverture. Marriage under coverture made wives and daughters invisible by law. In 1765, Sir William Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England described coverture and the legal rights of wives, "by marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband..." Conservatives can't force them back into marriages to make them invisible under their husbands so they're forcing them into pregnancies to make them invisible under their fetuses, passing laws that declare the uterus as property of the state.
Fundamentalist ideologies like the Curse of Eve Doctrine are based on the premise that motherhood is God's justice system for women's sexual behavior and children are the instrument by which this sentence is carried out. Abortion or contraception is escaping God's justice. If fetuses are persons, the state of pregnancy renders a person's body property of the fetus suspending their individual rights. Since fetuses are not constitutionally considered people until birth, 'fetus' is used as a legal fiction so the state can act as their ward. Meaning fetuses are the property of the state. The pregnant person is therefore carrying the property of the state who can now justify the usurpation of the rights of the pregnant person. By asserting pregnant people carry the property of the state renders anyone possessing a uterus property of the state by extension. Having a womb therefore erases a person's existence from the law. They exist de facto but not de jure. According to the law, they are not people. They're not even chattel. They're public property.
I do think we still have a lot of work to do on education and persuasion, but it's of Americans who are instinctively pro-choice, but fuzzy on the details, and may still believe there is such a thing as 'reasonable' restrictions on abortion. This is the legal in 'most' cases crowd, and Republicans are very much looking to exploit their uncertainty. I think this group is also probably not engaged enough on the issue, and doesn't understand the urgency of what's happening.
I'm also not sure democracy is our strongest argument. It wasn't that long ago that most ballot measures to ban same-sex marriage were winning (even in California as I recall), and I'm still doubtful that we have a majority in this country on trans rights, for example.
Most democracies have both democratic and anti-democratic features in their systems, because otherwise you can end up with majoritarian dictatorial rule as in Turkey, for example.
The argument I prefer is that bodily autonomy is a fundamental right, and when you take it away you relegate a woman to slave status, no matter what your intentions. And then support it with real life narratives, which always favor pro-choice, because the atrocities conservatives imagine just do not happen. And that you can't have it both ways, that you always have to choose between a woman and a mass of cells in her body that is utterly dependent on her, and that if a woman is to be a person at all she has to be trusted with her own life.
This is voter suppression. Changing the rules to prevent voters from making health decisions between a woman (for now) and their doctor? What’s next? Ban vasectomies? How’s that sound guys? Yes, the only way around this is to vote them all out as quickly as possible! I have lost none of the fury I feel for the SCOTUS. Corrupt bastards. Just an extension of the right wing agenda. Always AGAINST the common good.
I'm still not convinced that this isn't the other way around. Anti-abortion efforts seem more like a cover for undoing democracy and establishing a Christian fascist state.
- They've never *actually* cared about life (obvi)
- They've succeeded in gerrymandering and stacking the courts
- They are enshrining turning neighbors against neighbors into law
- They are eliminating electoral means of popular revolt (ballot initiatives)
- They are creating sweeping laws that can lock up anyone with pro-abortion, pro-Trans kid perspectives > basically any political opponent
Abortion is a great cover because their supporters will go along with anything 'to protect the babies' even the full on destruction of our democracy.
That isn't to say that covering all the anti-abortion leg you're doing isn't vital! I just worry that it's buying into their argument that this *is* just about abortion when it sure looks like so much more.
This is exactly why The Democracy Decree needs to move forward! Ignoring the will of the people is vile. Democratism.org advocates for eliminating the electoral college. Without them Democrats would have won almost every presidential election since Reagan. We need to make the People's Voice matter again! Majority of Americans believe in abortion rights and yet....
Please feel free to visit the site Democratism.org and see what you can do to volunteer or GET THE WORD OUT! there is another way!
I've been watching Jessica's Tik Toks for awhile, but just started getting her newsletter. I get Jessica Craven's newsletter too (Chop Wood Carry Water). I love all the information here and am so appreciative of the connection and the hard work that goes into all of this. I would also love a small space for regular Actions to take. Like a script to call representatives, or a Resist Bot text, or political races that need phone bank callers. It would be great to laser focus as a group on the daily/weekly so that our swell of voices could be louder and better heard.
I wanted to mention a paper I've written on how parental rights rhetoric is used to deny abortion access for minors - it includes a thank you to Jessica Valenti! The Political Language of Parental Rights: Abortion, Gender-Affirming Care, and Critical Race Theory https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4365970
This isn't technically addressing the story but popped in my head while I was reading it. Because the conservatives are so insidious, you have to try to think three conspiracies ahead.
I was thinking, they try to act like they’re not monsters so they add the “rape and incest exception.” False rape claims happen at about the same rate/ percentage as other false reports of crimes. And just like other false reports, they’re usually seen for what they are and settled there. But for some reason our culture doesn’t believe men rape, they just believe women lie about rape. So now that state after state is banning abortion, with the “humane” states leaving “exceptions” in place, a very, very desperate girl or woman might lie about a pregnancy in order to get an abortion. Considering she’d have to stand in front of a judge, odds are slim of that happening. A 10 yo was denied an abortion after being raped so…
BUT…now they can claim we’re all lying about rape just so we can get abortions. So the first time, possibly only time, a woman lies about rape to get an abortion, and it gets found out, that's it. They win. Because, they will claim, "See? Women lie about rape". So it didn’t happen one time because of a desperate woman or girl driven to lie by these abusive laws. It happens all the time and now they have yet another way of keeping women from reporting and another way to call us liars.
Preeeeeeach!!!! ✊🏽
Observation: I prefer the term "pro abortion access" to the term "pro choice" —tjere is no choice without access.
Thanks for a great daily compilation!!
Yup the pro-life crowd is an American Taliban
Good article here. https://wapo.st/3mg9Fq6
I really think if that awful Judge rules for banning mifepristone, his ruling should just be ignored. Not sure how Biden and the FDA could do it but there has to be a way not to be held hostage by these extremist’s judges.
I think reproductive justice should stop calling it fetal personhood and start calling it fetal coverture. Fetuses are a legal fiction conservatives made up to force women back into coverture. Marriage under coverture made wives and daughters invisible by law. In 1765, Sir William Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England described coverture and the legal rights of wives, "by marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband..." Conservatives can't force them back into marriages to make them invisible under their husbands so they're forcing them into pregnancies to make them invisible under their fetuses, passing laws that declare the uterus as property of the state.
Fundamentalist ideologies like the Curse of Eve Doctrine are based on the premise that motherhood is God's justice system for women's sexual behavior and children are the instrument by which this sentence is carried out. Abortion or contraception is escaping God's justice. If fetuses are persons, the state of pregnancy renders a person's body property of the fetus suspending their individual rights. Since fetuses are not constitutionally considered people until birth, 'fetus' is used as a legal fiction so the state can act as their ward. Meaning fetuses are the property of the state. The pregnant person is therefore carrying the property of the state who can now justify the usurpation of the rights of the pregnant person. By asserting pregnant people carry the property of the state renders anyone possessing a uterus property of the state by extension. Having a womb therefore erases a person's existence from the law. They exist de facto but not de jure. According to the law, they are not people. They're not even chattel. They're public property.
I do think we still have a lot of work to do on education and persuasion, but it's of Americans who are instinctively pro-choice, but fuzzy on the details, and may still believe there is such a thing as 'reasonable' restrictions on abortion. This is the legal in 'most' cases crowd, and Republicans are very much looking to exploit their uncertainty. I think this group is also probably not engaged enough on the issue, and doesn't understand the urgency of what's happening.
I'm also not sure democracy is our strongest argument. It wasn't that long ago that most ballot measures to ban same-sex marriage were winning (even in California as I recall), and I'm still doubtful that we have a majority in this country on trans rights, for example.
Most democracies have both democratic and anti-democratic features in their systems, because otherwise you can end up with majoritarian dictatorial rule as in Turkey, for example.
The argument I prefer is that bodily autonomy is a fundamental right, and when you take it away you relegate a woman to slave status, no matter what your intentions. And then support it with real life narratives, which always favor pro-choice, because the atrocities conservatives imagine just do not happen. And that you can't have it both ways, that you always have to choose between a woman and a mass of cells in her body that is utterly dependent on her, and that if a woman is to be a person at all she has to be trusted with her own life.
This is voter suppression. Changing the rules to prevent voters from making health decisions between a woman (for now) and their doctor? What’s next? Ban vasectomies? How’s that sound guys? Yes, the only way around this is to vote them all out as quickly as possible! I have lost none of the fury I feel for the SCOTUS. Corrupt bastards. Just an extension of the right wing agenda. Always AGAINST the common good.
I'm still not convinced that this isn't the other way around. Anti-abortion efforts seem more like a cover for undoing democracy and establishing a Christian fascist state.
- They've never *actually* cared about life (obvi)
- They've succeeded in gerrymandering and stacking the courts
- They are enshrining turning neighbors against neighbors into law
- They are eliminating electoral means of popular revolt (ballot initiatives)
- They are creating sweeping laws that can lock up anyone with pro-abortion, pro-Trans kid perspectives > basically any political opponent
Abortion is a great cover because their supporters will go along with anything 'to protect the babies' even the full on destruction of our democracy.
That isn't to say that covering all the anti-abortion leg you're doing isn't vital! I just worry that it's buying into their argument that this *is* just about abortion when it sure looks like so much more.
Is their plan to undo democracy? Subjugate women and have us live in “A Handmaids Tail” society?
Great column! Very clear and strong.
Is the only answer to things like this voting this reprehensible people out of office?