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Fed up of corporate media's scant coverage of the harm from Republican abortion bans? Volunteer to highlight headlines that matter by crowdsourcing. The service is free. Just add a link to news story about the impact of Republican abortion policies. Other volunteers review the entries which then get displayed on real-time a map. This activist led uplifts the facts that matter, but often get little media coverage or swamped by other news. See the current crowdsourced map of news about women being forced to carry dead fetus to term here https://thedemlabs.org/2023/12/17/abortion-ban-casualty-crowdsourced-map-republican-war-on-women/

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Thank you for posting.

Somehow, someway, somebody who has think out of the box intelligence needs to solve the problem of getting these messages out to a wider audience. The new norm needs to move towards being comfortable sharing the horror stories (ie real life situations) that are out there, but have not been shared due to fear, demonizing in their circles aka churches, R media & even some msm. Mathew Dowd showed enormous bravery this past weekend sharing an Opinion Piece written about his experience 25 years ago. His ex is a new shero & he is a hero for sharing.

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Too many conservative catholics that want women to only use the rhythm method dominate the religious part of the Republicans. You might say that restricts your freedom to have sex when you like but their answer is that they believe God didn't intend on you having that freedom. They want you to live by their rules as usual.

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What is really scary is if you look at the yoga/health environment that targets young voters (20s) they have actually made headway discouraging the use of oral contraception claiming it’s unnatural and negatively affects hormones & your body. I kid you not.

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I escorted at the clinic the Friday after the Dobbs decision. I heard a few of the Antis (as we call the protestors) discussing that the overturn of Roe v Wade was a good first step and next target was getting rid of contraception.

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I’d like to move the abortifacient term to the ‘exception’ dustbin. Whether zygotes end up in the wastewater due to hormonal birth control or, more likely, the God-given design of the uterus, anti-abortionists are doing nothing to ‘rescue’ them.

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Let me fix Higgins' quote: "Republicans are like your uncle who molests you, and other girls and women in your family, and threatens you if you tell mom and dad."

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Well said 👍

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It is true that the vast majority of Republican voters support contraception. But the whole point is that the Republican party not only no longer cares what voters want; it doesn't even care what its OWN voters want. Unfortunately it may take a lot more than this to get those voters to realize it.

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That ad was WILD.

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It appears that the Republicans and Fundamentalists who are pushing and enforcing these mandates are equating women’s rights, bodies and sexuality with our implicit power and are terrified. Bullies (as they should rightly be called) act out and bully when they are scared. Behind his bluster Ken Paxton is a pathetic little boy who probably tortured bugs as a boy. We need to continue to support each here and in our communities and vote Blue Blue Blue and kick these bullies out one by one.

Thank you Jessica and Grace you give me strength to keep going when I feel defeated and think the bullies are getting the best of us.

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My opinion is that bullies behave the way they do because they instill fear against those who they view as less than ... and they are allowed to continue their behavior. Once someone stands up to them by showing how wrong they are or dismissing them or showing them their fear tactics don’t work, the bully often retreats. Women & the men who support them really need to stand up. Those with stories to share need to share, now. The rest of us need to stand with them and show them the love and empathy and backing they deserve and should have had all along.

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When Roe was overturned, I pitched an essay on how glad I was to have chosen sterilization more than a decade ago. Nobody would print it. But stories like this make me say, “Thank fuck for sterilization and menopause, because NOBODY can force me to have a child I don’t want.”

I know saying, “I’m glad I’m not a mom” or “I hate being a mom (as a woman said on Threads this week)” is still fraught in our society. But it’s a monumental job. Women should be able to decide whether or not they want to do it, and the rest of us should say, “I honor your choice.”

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Good for you Andra. I knew I didn’t want children from a young age. I am a woman and no less than a woman because I chose to keep it that way. I knew that no one including society will define me by my reproductive organs. ❤️👍

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Well, state’s interest in the bigger picture is to encourage procreation, so that at one extreme we won’t go extinct. Thank the stars.that there are enough women and men who want to have children that there is no need for forced birth. The state’s focus should be to make it easy for women to want to have children but that requires taxes which these Republican mfers don’t want to support. I think we should start a religion where it’s a sacred obligation to bring children into this world that everyone has a role to play, parents, community, society at large, state … a famous woman said it takes a village and it should.

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"these Republican mfers"

I'm on a campaign to eliminate the mfers phrase. Let's use ratfckers instead!

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I clicked on that ad you linked to (after Roe was overturned). The older woman says “we didn’t have birth control in 1973”—-excuse me?!?!

Of course we did! By inference she’s claiming that the only reason abortion was legalized (with Roe) was because we didn’t have birth control. Complete nonsense.

It reminds me of Coney Barrett’s comment that abortion isn’t needed because we have need more babies to adopt.

AARGH!!!

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No, there's truth to that claim.

Bill Baird, a pro-choice activist, was handcuffed and arrested at Boston University immediately after he handed a 19 year old student a condom and foam. It was an orchestrated event to challenge MA law. The Catholic church wielded enormous power in the state in those days.

"Eisenstadt v. Baird was decided by the court 50 years ago, in 1972. The ruling legalized contraceptives for unmarried couples and effectively legalized birth control for all people—years after the more well known Griswold v. Connecticut did the same for married couples, in 1965. It also laid the groundwork for 1973’s Roe v. Wade ruling, which for almost 50 years protected a woman’s right to abortion, until a conservative-leaning Supreme Court overturned it on June 24."

“ 'If the right to privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual to be free,' Baird says. 'To decide when to bear or beget a child. That was the foundation for legalizing birth control, and also for legalizing abortion.' "

https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/activist-bill-baird-abortion-rights-bu-lecture/

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I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t re-use that ad honestly. It appeals to the older evangelical boomers who vote and are struggling with inflation. They could highly target it. Plus, it appeals to the personality that feels since they had to deal with it, others can or should too. I don’t agree with the sentiment of it because for I want my daughters and nieces to have choice above all else. Economics is cyclinal in my mind. They are twisted in that way tho. Conway has 2 daughters and at least one who is pro-choice. She helped build a party who is out of control.

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Margaret Sanger was famously preaching birth control to Gandhi to adopt as a policy in the 1940s if I remember right.

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I found this: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-45469129, saying she talked to Gandhi in the mid-1930’s.

Sanger had opened the first birth control clinic in NYC in 1916 (I had no idea it was that early) Good for her! (she got arrested)

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Here's a thing I've been trying to puzzle out: who are those men on the far right supposed to have sex with? Many appear to be straight up homophobic (notice the use of "appear to be"). How many women want to have sex with a man who won't use birth control or allow his partner to do so either? So there are gonna be a whole lotta incels or rapists, I guess!

I'm reminded of the Shakers, who lived in celibate communities until they all died out. Couldn't happen soon enough to these guys.

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There's already way too many rapists and incels already. To quote from my AED t shirt 👕, they can all fuck off into the 🌞. They seem to have no problems with incest, so add that. They probably have a stash of sex toys too. There's probably an increase with minors and animals.

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Banning contraception has always been one of the goals here, as the Republicans seek to turn this country into Gilead.

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I cackled so hard at Conway's efforts. These politics-driven Republican women have totally lost their grip on the tiger's tail. Don't they know the point isn't persuasion anymore? It's subjugation.

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Dec 15
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I wrote in another thread that I am glad I am not of child bearing years. I don’t have children and by choice. I never came to terms with bringing a life into this world and being responsible for all its happiness, maybe I intellectualized the prospect too much. I found a partner who said it was my body and my decision and in 1986 India! Contraception is not failsafe and when I wanted an abortion my doctor understood and supported me. I am glad I am not leaving any children behind in this hell hole. Harsh but hope it doesn’t come to that. But as adults we chose to come to this country and the child did not choose to be born here. People don’t think enough about what world they are leaving behind for their children and how they have equipped them to cope with it when they’re gone. It’s not enough to just birth. Many women and men understand that immense responsibility. These monsters are interested in punishing the women now and the child later. They don’t care.

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I GET IT

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