I recommend all AED readers read John Stoehr’s latest column in his Editorial Board newsletter on how anti-abortionists will likely give Trump a pass on not holding to their hardcore line where he writes:
“ ... abortion isn’t about abortion (to anti-abortionists). It’s about women’s place in society relative to men’s. This is a shared focus, whether from the antiabortionist or white evangelical Protestant view. It doesn’t matter that Trump isn’t religious. It doesn’t matter that he’s squishy on abortion bans. What matters is that his enemies are theirs.”
This is absolutely so dangerous and frightening! I'm doing what I can to share this information. We absolutely must hold them responsible for their anti-women policies - and their flagrant lying.
Complete fanaticism. For these people to think they're going to patrol what goes on inside our uteri, much less on a cellular level, is absolutely dystopian. To say one form is legitimate birth control, while the other is an abortifacient, is nuts.
It seems like there needs to be rebellion from women who are not particularly liberal. Unfortunately I think men will only ever do so much because it's not our body (although if they actually had to pay child support maybe it would matter). It's not fair but I think we may need to get even bigger majorities of women than we already have.
When one Louisiana lawmaker was asked why they didn’t mandate that crisis pregnancy centers employ licensed medical providers, she replied it was simply “too much of a financial burden.”
This sentence!!! It's clear that they don't consider providing medical care for women a priority and that lawmaker should have her name plastered all over the place for not thinking women were worthy of medical care. This goes hand in hand with the fact that those states have not implemented the safeguards for pregnancy that California has, and as a result have the worst maternal outcomes.
I would love to ask her if the fetus was worthy of medical care? After all, the infant mortality rate is even higher than the maternal mortality rate and early care of the mother is key to improving infant mortality.
I suppose individual stories with names and faces of women who've been unfortunate enough to be 'treated' at one of these 'clinics' might be more effective for us than criticizing them in the abstract. I often think people who are good at that kind of thinking are already solidly on our side, but idk.
Yes, I think you are right. The general public glom onto personal stories more readily than the abstract. The more immediate and personalized a story is, the better it connects with people. They have to feel connected and that's what this is all about, connections.
Yes. Although I do sometimes feel that it's about talking to people who are less intelligent than us without letting them know that we think they're less intelligent than us :(
We all have our areas of strength and weakness. I will never forget a video project done by a charity that aimed to build confidence in children from underprivileged areas. They asked the children to demonstrate a skill that they had and to teach the team how do do the skill. The children were very proud to show their knowledge and these lessons were taped and shared with others. I will never forget one particular boy who could catch fish in a river with his bare hands. That type of knowledge is something I don't have and I respect him for his skill. We are all on this journey of life and I have always believed that we are here to learn. Knowledge comes in all types. If someone is open to learning then I respect their journey. It's the arrogant people who cause the most damage. I hope this doesn't feel like a criticism. I am not criticizing. I am simply sharing my different perspective. I respect you.
Not at all, that is a very good response. I place a high value on humility so it's hypocritical for me to feel that way. To your point, IF someone is open to learning, I have no quarrel with them. It's just frustrating when something is obvious to you and other people aren't seeing it. But then you are very right that they may be able to do all kinds of things that I can't, and I need to always remember that. I think everything would be easier if it hadn't felt for the last seven years that we're thisclose to falling into the abyss.
Yes, I have a hard time maintaining my patience with people who aren't open. I struggle with this, but I try to understand. The frustration... oh, yes. I relate to that and I have found that (probably because I was a teacher) oftentimes it is some old learned misinformation that is the stumbling block. Teasing out that old misinformation is a real challenge.
The first thing everyone should know is that by federal law you OWN your medical records. It's the "P" in the Healthcare and Insurance Portability Act. No state law can keep you from sending your medical information to anyone. Everyone should keep a personal copy of their medical records and women in promatricide states should keep it updated after every medical appointment.
"pro-matricide" - hadn't heard that one before but it's a very truthful description! Yes, reproductive rights groups and activists need to be spreading this information. The climate of fear the enemy has created is doing most of their work for them.
Check out Open Notes it allows you to look at all your medical records that are in electronic form.
As of April 5, 2021, the federal rule on Interoperability, Information Blocking, and ONC Health IT Certification—which implemented the 21st Century Cures Act—went into effect. Known as the “Cures Rule,” this national policy requires healthcare providers give patients access to all of the health information in their electronic medical records “without delay” and without charge
Tuberville holding up military promotions gives me an idea…why can’t the federal government provide birth control pills and abortions on every military property and VA hospital in America? This is a public health crisis, surely there is a way to do this. Like the Iraq war temporary war time approval that lasted a decade or more. Just do it, no one is going to stop women from getting care on a military base or VA hospital. Safety in numbers too. Just like PP WI, all appointments will be filled all across the county, overwhelming any efforts to criminalize individuals.
Yeah. In my fantasy if I were president I'd have ordered the military out to set up OBGYN field hospitals in states where women can't get care. That's not happening anytime soon but that's the severity of the crisis and it should at least be treated as such.
The problem is twofold. The Hyde Amendment prohibits any federal monies being used for abortion.
But there’s a kicker. The wording of the Hyde Amendment is interpreted differently by different people. It turns on things like the meaning of “for.” Tuberville and other Republicans interpret providing travel costs to soldiers seeking out of state abortion care as being “for” abortion, because the money facilitates the soldier getting an abortion.
This is also an argument that was made against funding Planned Parenthood. Even if those federal funds were kept in a separate account, the argument is that funding other services frees up other money Planned Parenthood receives to be spent on abortion. They see funding PP as “inderectly” funding abortion.
Of course, they also argue that many forms of contraception are “abortifacient,” which gives them another way to attack spending federal money or using federal resources like the military or Native American reservations and health care services
Below is a statement making the argument *for* using federal money for the travel expenses of military members needing abortion care, and why it shouldn’t be interpreted as running afoul of Hyde:
Does this apply to birth control and the morning after pill? Access to the morning after pill on federal property would avoid some unwanted pregnancies. It's not enough. Hyde needs to be repealed.
I’m not an expert on this, but I always understood that the Hyde Amendment prohibited abortion on military bases.
“The Hyde Amendment restricts abortion coverage for federally-funded health care recipients, specifically women enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid, Native American women, U.S. servicewomen and veterans, women in Peace Corps, federal employee families, D. C. women residents, and women in immigration detention facilities.”
Hi Lesley.. I am not especially cognizant of that law, but abortion is not preformed on the military bases. They need to be transported off base for that. That's what is causing the ruckus with Tuberville.
I just listened in on a disturbing Tik Tok live with people who want to outlaw birth control. They claimed that any action taken with the intent to make a woman’s body hostile to a potential fetus should be outlawed. They claimed the birth control pill thins the uterine lining making a fertilized egg unable to implant. It is terrifying to see the anti-science movement continue to spread and I really fear how many conservatives are going to lap up these talking points without question.
Sadly, if they are still conservatives after the fall of Roe, and the obvious lies, they are probably lost causes. We need to flag this type of harmful medical disinformation somehow.
Perhaps a political commercial with some of their more ridiculous statements, with two women reading them to each other then saying how ridiculously funny they are, and a third woman saying, yes, but they are serious and all looking stunned into the camera. (They hate to be laughed at.)
I would say I can’t believe how cruel it is to bury the abuse of women with medical issues and fetal loss, but these are some of the same people who believe biting a stick is in my best interest to control my pain (when that will only dislocate my jaw). I wish I could think of a way to make that funny. Seriously if anyone can, it might help.
John Oliver can! His monologue on the Ohio ban was brilliant!
Yes. Anyone that wants to force a raped 10 year to bear the resulting proof of the rape, does not deserve to live in a first world country, of course they are trying to make us a third-world country. My Canadian husband just cannot believe their barbaric intellect.
Once again, this is not necessarily directly about abortion, per se. It is about control. And, these uneducated, callous individuals for get that there are reasons for taking birth control that have nothing to do with “promiscuity” and everything to do with a woman’s health. The Handmaid’s Tale is not a user’s manual, something they blissfully ignore.
Something else to add to the insanity is the religious aspect of these centers. Government supporting these instead of actual medical centers is equivalent to Texas replacing school counselors with chaplains. It's another example of the GOP propping up a certain form of Christianity at the expense of everyone else.
In general, I really wish the left would get energized about this blatant theocratic fascist behavior. We can hammer the individual points and be outraged about each one, but they all boil down to theocratic fascism. Abortion bans are theocratic fascism. CPCs are theocratic fascism. "Maternal care homes" are theocratic fascism. "Chaplains in public schools" are theocratic fascism. Book bans are theocratic fascism. Banning trans procedures (and other persecution of the LGBTQIA+ community) is theocratic fascism. Forcing everyone to learn that America was founded as a Christian nation, denying our enslavement of Black people and oppression of indigenous people, as well as denying our continued oppression of peoples of color is theocratic fascism.
I think maybe it's hard to figure out how to message that? It's correct, but we can't say 'theocratic fascism' to the general public because it's too academic; to the average citizen it immediately conjures up left-wing professors with all the negative stereotypes that go along with that. I do think it's important to be aware of what gets people to listen to us and what makes them tune out and roll their eyes. It's hard, because we can be both correct, and in a bubble.
I wish Biden would say what JFK said when he was campaigning for President: “I will answer to the Constitution and not the Vatican.” And then Biden should seize a teachable moment and explain that our country is based on the separation of Church and State. And then he should have his DOJ enforce that.
The Republican party has a very different view of the meaning of the first amendment, and that view has largely been endorsed by the federal judiciary they've gotten appointed, so yes we really need to win that argument with the public.
That is exactly the plan of the religious wing of the Republican party. The less religious go along with it because they think it means cheaper social services.
I think the less religious are no less nativist. They all believe white people founded America and slavery wasn't really bad and peoples of color are inferior and women should know their place and etc. It's why you saw the Christian flag next to a gallows on 6 January along with the Proud Boys. Their bigotry is all the same kool-aid.
Yes, definitely. They're fighting for the same ideas and those ugly ideas have a long history. To your point the other day, there's not any daylight between them until they gain power and the implementation; maybe then. Maybe. I do think there must still be a chunk of people who vote Republican because they're against the Democrats and (somehow) still more worried about -them-. And I think many of those people don't recognize how extreme the Republican party has become, and they're fitting what they see into a framework of George Bush / Mitt Romney. Hence something like 'Christian' social services is a money saver, a way to get 'private citizens' involved, etc. etc.
It -is- hard to believe. I know people in my family who I think would fit this description and I haven't asked them how they're voting now and I'm not sure I'd want to. I do think so many people are much much less tuned into politics than people like us are. And I never use the word politics, because it minimalizes and trivializes what's actually going on in this country. But if you imagine someone who is disengaged enough that they would still use that word? Idk.
I've often thought we need to mobilize volunteers to hand out accurate information in front of CPCs, with all of the real abortion clinics and websites to get abortion pills. I wouldn't want to come off as pushing abortion but just giving people options.
It's beyond time to start picketing these places. Because of false and misleading advertising, so many people don't even know they don't have a doctor on staff.
God. Everything in today's column is just nuts!!! As often the case, hard to pick what pissed me off the most, but...
Texas’ requirements are similarly unambiguous: A law that went into effect this month creating a network of anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers and ‘maternity homes’, SB24, explicitly prohibits contractors from providing birth control. WOW!😥
My guess? Democratic politicians don’t think Americans can walk and chew gum at the same time (and they’re not necessarily wrong about that).
So right now they’re laser focused in abortion bans, and think bringing birth control into the mix is both confusing and makes them sound like nutters. Some probably don’t realize how serious the anti-contraception really is. And some fear that stating that banning birth control is the goal makes them sound hysterical.
Most of the country didn’t really believe that Roe would actually be overturned until it was. Contraception is so deeply embedded in the day to day life of the country that most people wouldn’t believe that banning it is an actual goal, much less that it would actually succeed.if a Democratic politician went out and made a speech stating that abortion bans are only a precursor to eliminating birth control, most American would dismiss that as paranoia, and the politician as either unhinged or disingenuous.
I’m afraid we do have to start from scratch, though we can certainly build on the existing reproductive justice framework.
Yes, very much agreed. It reinforces my view that what I think we should be doing is focusing on facts, not so much the interpretation of those facts, which the listener can do themselves. So we don't need to say, 'Republicans want women to die', we just tell them the stories of the Texas women and all the others that are coming forward. If we say, 'They're coming after birth control,' yes, we will be dismissed. But what about saying, Republicans gave X million dollars to crisis pregnancy centers who aren't allowed to even discuss birth control. What about saying, X Republican bill or judge lets your pharmacist not fill your prescription, or lets your insurance not cover your birth control. The other advantage of this is not doing the analysis for them, letting them figure it out on their own, is more respectful of their intelligence. Whether it's worthy of that respect idk but so far it hasn't worked to just see what's going on and tell people. We have to find a way to make them see it for themselves.
I agree. When we say “they want to ban birth control,” a lot of people are going to tune out, thinking we are overreacting (where have we heard *that* before?).
It’s better to lay out the facts. Show them, for instance, what Students for Life says about contraception, and follow that up by highlighting Republican proposals that are reducing access to it. We also have to make sure to emphasize measure that impact everyone - because if we stick to things like cuts to programs that fund contraception for poor people, the response will be something about needing to cut spending.
They’ll also answer with comments about how poor people, women in particular, need to be responsible for their own birth control. “Why should I have to pay for some woman I don’t even know to have sex?” “She could just keep her legs closed, you know.”
You’re right, we need to provide facts, and keep the conversation focused there. The right was able to side track the conversation about abortion by focusing on “innocent baybeez,” and the morals of women who experience an unplanned pregnancy. We can’t let the right pick the field of battle on contraception.
Yes. And as much as I hate to say it, whenever we introduce any other issue into the conversation, we potentially shrink our audience. Economic justice, racial justice, and, heaven forbid, trans rights, are cues that we're coming from the left, and the listener can apply whatever negative stereotypes they already have on to our message. It works better if it goes the other way around. Start with issues that have broad support, like contraception, and when people trust us, then you can go on to explain why transgender is not a threat to civilization.
Exactly. Abortion rights have pretty widespread support across the population, including a significant minority of Republicans - I think I read somewhere recently that around 38% of Republicans didn’t want Roe overturned, but I could be remembering that wrong. At any rate, abortion itself, and contraception access are not leftist ideas.
Giving the right the opportunity to tie abortion rights to other concepts that are supported only by those on the left gives them the chance to claim that contraception and abortion are only the beginning. They’ll say that leftists are using those issues to get the camel’s nose under the tent, that the goal of the left isn’t abortion rights at all - it’s all of these *other* immoral/Marxist/anti-God/scary policies that are the real goal.
Economic Justice, racial Justice, trans rights, judicial reform, etc etc are all worthy goals, and should be addressed. But allowing the right to tie them to reproductive justice only serves to obscure what they’re doing, and the impact that banning contraception would have on every adult in the country.
Yes. At this election it's that 38% of Republicans I'm interested in (even if it's a lot less). If we could get just a handful of those voters to vote for Democratic candidates this time around, the impact would be huge.
"The PowerPoint claimed that barrier methods like condoms are ‘often ineffective,’ before getting to the overriding point and asserting that ‘the goal of birth control is preventing sexual intercourse from resulting in its natural, intended biological result: children.’"
I swear anti-abortion is little more than a creampie fetish.
I recommend all AED readers read John Stoehr’s latest column in his Editorial Board newsletter on how anti-abortionists will likely give Trump a pass on not holding to their hardcore line where he writes:
“ ... abortion isn’t about abortion (to anti-abortionists). It’s about women’s place in society relative to men’s. This is a shared focus, whether from the antiabortionist or white evangelical Protestant view. It doesn’t matter that Trump isn’t religious. It doesn’t matter that he’s squishy on abortion bans. What matters is that his enemies are theirs.”
This is absolutely so dangerous and frightening! I'm doing what I can to share this information. We absolutely must hold them responsible for their anti-women policies - and their flagrant lying.
Complete fanaticism. For these people to think they're going to patrol what goes on inside our uteri, much less on a cellular level, is absolutely dystopian. To say one form is legitimate birth control, while the other is an abortifacient, is nuts.
It seems like there needs to be rebellion from women who are not particularly liberal. Unfortunately I think men will only ever do so much because it's not our body (although if they actually had to pay child support maybe it would matter). It's not fair but I think we may need to get even bigger majorities of women than we already have.
When one Louisiana lawmaker was asked why they didn’t mandate that crisis pregnancy centers employ licensed medical providers, she replied it was simply “too much of a financial burden.”
This sentence!!! It's clear that they don't consider providing medical care for women a priority and that lawmaker should have her name plastered all over the place for not thinking women were worthy of medical care. This goes hand in hand with the fact that those states have not implemented the safeguards for pregnancy that California has, and as a result have the worst maternal outcomes.
Outrageous! Too much of a financial burden? Well that says it all. Wow.
I would love to ask her if the fetus was worthy of medical care? After all, the infant mortality rate is even higher than the maternal mortality rate and early care of the mother is key to improving infant mortality.
I suppose individual stories with names and faces of women who've been unfortunate enough to be 'treated' at one of these 'clinics' might be more effective for us than criticizing them in the abstract. I often think people who are good at that kind of thinking are already solidly on our side, but idk.
Yes, I think you are right. The general public glom onto personal stories more readily than the abstract. The more immediate and personalized a story is, the better it connects with people. They have to feel connected and that's what this is all about, connections.
Yes. Although I do sometimes feel that it's about talking to people who are less intelligent than us without letting them know that we think they're less intelligent than us :(
We all have our areas of strength and weakness. I will never forget a video project done by a charity that aimed to build confidence in children from underprivileged areas. They asked the children to demonstrate a skill that they had and to teach the team how do do the skill. The children were very proud to show their knowledge and these lessons were taped and shared with others. I will never forget one particular boy who could catch fish in a river with his bare hands. That type of knowledge is something I don't have and I respect him for his skill. We are all on this journey of life and I have always believed that we are here to learn. Knowledge comes in all types. If someone is open to learning then I respect their journey. It's the arrogant people who cause the most damage. I hope this doesn't feel like a criticism. I am not criticizing. I am simply sharing my different perspective. I respect you.
Not at all, that is a very good response. I place a high value on humility so it's hypocritical for me to feel that way. To your point, IF someone is open to learning, I have no quarrel with them. It's just frustrating when something is obvious to you and other people aren't seeing it. But then you are very right that they may be able to do all kinds of things that I can't, and I need to always remember that. I think everything would be easier if it hadn't felt for the last seven years that we're thisclose to falling into the abyss.
Yes, I have a hard time maintaining my patience with people who aren't open. I struggle with this, but I try to understand. The frustration... oh, yes. I relate to that and I have found that (probably because I was a teacher) oftentimes it is some old learned misinformation that is the stumbling block. Teasing out that old misinformation is a real challenge.
The first thing everyone should know is that by federal law you OWN your medical records. It's the "P" in the Healthcare and Insurance Portability Act. No state law can keep you from sending your medical information to anyone. Everyone should keep a personal copy of their medical records and women in promatricide states should keep it updated after every medical appointment.
"pro-matricide" - hadn't heard that one before but it's a very truthful description! Yes, reproductive rights groups and activists need to be spreading this information. The climate of fear the enemy has created is doing most of their work for them.
This could be useful too.
Check out Open Notes it allows you to look at all your medical records that are in electronic form.
As of April 5, 2021, the federal rule on Interoperability, Information Blocking, and ONC Health IT Certification—which implemented the 21st Century Cures Act—went into effect. Known as the “Cures Rule,” this national policy requires healthcare providers give patients access to all of the health information in their electronic medical records “without delay” and without charge
Tuberville holding up military promotions gives me an idea…why can’t the federal government provide birth control pills and abortions on every military property and VA hospital in America? This is a public health crisis, surely there is a way to do this. Like the Iraq war temporary war time approval that lasted a decade or more. Just do it, no one is going to stop women from getting care on a military base or VA hospital. Safety in numbers too. Just like PP WI, all appointments will be filled all across the county, overwhelming any efforts to criminalize individuals.
Yeah. In my fantasy if I were president I'd have ordered the military out to set up OBGYN field hospitals in states where women can't get care. That's not happening anytime soon but that's the severity of the crisis and it should at least be treated as such.
The problem is twofold. The Hyde Amendment prohibits any federal monies being used for abortion.
But there’s a kicker. The wording of the Hyde Amendment is interpreted differently by different people. It turns on things like the meaning of “for.” Tuberville and other Republicans interpret providing travel costs to soldiers seeking out of state abortion care as being “for” abortion, because the money facilitates the soldier getting an abortion.
This is also an argument that was made against funding Planned Parenthood. Even if those federal funds were kept in a separate account, the argument is that funding other services frees up other money Planned Parenthood receives to be spent on abortion. They see funding PP as “inderectly” funding abortion.
Of course, they also argue that many forms of contraception are “abortifacient,” which gives them another way to attack spending federal money or using federal resources like the military or Native American reservations and health care services
Below is a statement making the argument *for* using federal money for the travel expenses of military members needing abortion care, and why it shouldn’t be interpreted as running afoul of Hyde:
https://www.justice.gov/d9/2022-11/2022-09-27-hyde_amendment_application_to_hhs_transportation.pdf
That’s it! That’s what real leadership would look like.
Does this apply to birth control and the morning after pill? Access to the morning after pill on federal property would avoid some unwanted pregnancies. It's not enough. Hyde needs to be repealed.
I’m not an expert on this, but I always understood that the Hyde Amendment prohibited abortion on military bases.
“The Hyde Amendment restricts abortion coverage for federally-funded health care recipients, specifically women enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid, Native American women, U.S. servicewomen and veterans, women in Peace Corps, federal employee families, D. C. women residents, and women in immigration detention facilities.”
—Wikipedia
We need to get rid of this Amendment.
Hi Lesley.. I am not especially cognizant of that law, but abortion is not preformed on the military bases. They need to be transported off base for that. That's what is causing the ruckus with Tuberville.
To repeat a point I have made constantly, “Welcome to Gilead”.
I just listened in on a disturbing Tik Tok live with people who want to outlaw birth control. They claimed that any action taken with the intent to make a woman’s body hostile to a potential fetus should be outlawed. They claimed the birth control pill thins the uterine lining making a fertilized egg unable to implant. It is terrifying to see the anti-science movement continue to spread and I really fear how many conservatives are going to lap up these talking points without question.
You know what also thins the uterine lining and prevents implantation? Breastfeeding. Are they going to ban breastfeeding, too?
That's actually not quite accurate, my sister has a third daughter, because she believed that.
Didn't say it was the most reliable form of contraception.
Great point!
Sadly, if they are still conservatives after the fall of Roe, and the obvious lies, they are probably lost causes. We need to flag this type of harmful medical disinformation somehow.
Or call a lot of attention to it and what life would look like in their world.
Perhaps a political commercial with some of their more ridiculous statements, with two women reading them to each other then saying how ridiculously funny they are, and a third woman saying, yes, but they are serious and all looking stunned into the camera. (They hate to be laughed at.)
Thumbs up.
I would say I can’t believe how cruel it is to bury the abuse of women with medical issues and fetal loss, but these are some of the same people who believe biting a stick is in my best interest to control my pain (when that will only dislocate my jaw). I wish I could think of a way to make that funny. Seriously if anyone can, it might help.
John Oliver can! His monologue on the Ohio ban was brilliant!
Yes. Anyone that wants to force a raped 10 year to bear the resulting proof of the rape, does not deserve to live in a first world country, of course they are trying to make us a third-world country. My Canadian husband just cannot believe their barbaric intellect.
We just have to educate him about pain. But you’re right, he’s gifted!
Once again, this is not necessarily directly about abortion, per se. It is about control. And, these uneducated, callous individuals for get that there are reasons for taking birth control that have nothing to do with “promiscuity” and everything to do with a woman’s health. The Handmaid’s Tale is not a user’s manual, something they blissfully ignore.
Sending this out in my network in Kansas
Something else to add to the insanity is the religious aspect of these centers. Government supporting these instead of actual medical centers is equivalent to Texas replacing school counselors with chaplains. It's another example of the GOP propping up a certain form of Christianity at the expense of everyone else.
In general, I really wish the left would get energized about this blatant theocratic fascist behavior. We can hammer the individual points and be outraged about each one, but they all boil down to theocratic fascism. Abortion bans are theocratic fascism. CPCs are theocratic fascism. "Maternal care homes" are theocratic fascism. "Chaplains in public schools" are theocratic fascism. Book bans are theocratic fascism. Banning trans procedures (and other persecution of the LGBTQIA+ community) is theocratic fascism. Forcing everyone to learn that America was founded as a Christian nation, denying our enslavement of Black people and oppression of indigenous people, as well as denying our continued oppression of peoples of color is theocratic fascism.
I think maybe it's hard to figure out how to message that? It's correct, but we can't say 'theocratic fascism' to the general public because it's too academic; to the average citizen it immediately conjures up left-wing professors with all the negative stereotypes that go along with that. I do think it's important to be aware of what gets people to listen to us and what makes them tune out and roll their eyes. It's hard, because we can be both correct, and in a bubble.
I wish Biden would say what JFK said when he was campaigning for President: “I will answer to the Constitution and not the Vatican.” And then Biden should seize a teachable moment and explain that our country is based on the separation of Church and State. And then he should have his DOJ enforce that.
The Republican party has a very different view of the meaning of the first amendment, and that view has largely been endorsed by the federal judiciary they've gotten appointed, so yes we really need to win that argument with the public.
I know. I can’t believe how many times I’ve had to explain the meaning of the word “theocracy.”
That is exactly the plan of the religious wing of the Republican party. The less religious go along with it because they think it means cheaper social services.
I think the less religious are no less nativist. They all believe white people founded America and slavery wasn't really bad and peoples of color are inferior and women should know their place and etc. It's why you saw the Christian flag next to a gallows on 6 January along with the Proud Boys. Their bigotry is all the same kool-aid.
Yes, definitely. They're fighting for the same ideas and those ugly ideas have a long history. To your point the other day, there's not any daylight between them until they gain power and the implementation; maybe then. Maybe. I do think there must still be a chunk of people who vote Republican because they're against the Democrats and (somehow) still more worried about -them-. And I think many of those people don't recognize how extreme the Republican party has become, and they're fitting what they see into a framework of George Bush / Mitt Romney. Hence something like 'Christian' social services is a money saver, a way to get 'private citizens' involved, etc. etc.
I don’t know any of those R’s anymore. If you’re still R at this point, you mainline the kool-aid. Every R in my life is a radicalized extremist.
It -is- hard to believe. I know people in my family who I think would fit this description and I haven't asked them how they're voting now and I'm not sure I'd want to. I do think so many people are much much less tuned into politics than people like us are. And I never use the word politics, because it minimalizes and trivializes what's actually going on in this country. But if you imagine someone who is disengaged enough that they would still use that word? Idk.
I've often thought we need to mobilize volunteers to hand out accurate information in front of CPCs, with all of the real abortion clinics and websites to get abortion pills. I wouldn't want to come off as pushing abortion but just giving people options.
It's beyond time to start picketing these places. Because of false and misleading advertising, so many people don't even know they don't have a doctor on staff.
God. Everything in today's column is just nuts!!! As often the case, hard to pick what pissed me off the most, but...
Texas’ requirements are similarly unambiguous: A law that went into effect this month creating a network of anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers and ‘maternity homes’, SB24, explicitly prohibits contractors from providing birth control. WOW!😥
I live in Texas and am glad I am well past child bearing age. It is truly frightening here.
In-state confinement and "maternal wellness centers"? Sounds like Margaret Atwood was predicting the future...
Read up on the real-life Magdalene Laundries if you want to see their endgame.
https://www.history.com/news/magdalene-laundry-ireland-asylum-abuse
Will Democrats and existing reproductive rights groups sound the alarm, or do we need to start new movements from scratch? The clock is ticking.
My guess? Democratic politicians don’t think Americans can walk and chew gum at the same time (and they’re not necessarily wrong about that).
So right now they’re laser focused in abortion bans, and think bringing birth control into the mix is both confusing and makes them sound like nutters. Some probably don’t realize how serious the anti-contraception really is. And some fear that stating that banning birth control is the goal makes them sound hysterical.
Most of the country didn’t really believe that Roe would actually be overturned until it was. Contraception is so deeply embedded in the day to day life of the country that most people wouldn’t believe that banning it is an actual goal, much less that it would actually succeed.if a Democratic politician went out and made a speech stating that abortion bans are only a precursor to eliminating birth control, most American would dismiss that as paranoia, and the politician as either unhinged or disingenuous.
I’m afraid we do have to start from scratch, though we can certainly build on the existing reproductive justice framework.
Yes, very much agreed. It reinforces my view that what I think we should be doing is focusing on facts, not so much the interpretation of those facts, which the listener can do themselves. So we don't need to say, 'Republicans want women to die', we just tell them the stories of the Texas women and all the others that are coming forward. If we say, 'They're coming after birth control,' yes, we will be dismissed. But what about saying, Republicans gave X million dollars to crisis pregnancy centers who aren't allowed to even discuss birth control. What about saying, X Republican bill or judge lets your pharmacist not fill your prescription, or lets your insurance not cover your birth control. The other advantage of this is not doing the analysis for them, letting them figure it out on their own, is more respectful of their intelligence. Whether it's worthy of that respect idk but so far it hasn't worked to just see what's going on and tell people. We have to find a way to make them see it for themselves.
Zach,
I agree. When we say “they want to ban birth control,” a lot of people are going to tune out, thinking we are overreacting (where have we heard *that* before?).
It’s better to lay out the facts. Show them, for instance, what Students for Life says about contraception, and follow that up by highlighting Republican proposals that are reducing access to it. We also have to make sure to emphasize measure that impact everyone - because if we stick to things like cuts to programs that fund contraception for poor people, the response will be something about needing to cut spending.
They’ll also answer with comments about how poor people, women in particular, need to be responsible for their own birth control. “Why should I have to pay for some woman I don’t even know to have sex?” “She could just keep her legs closed, you know.”
You’re right, we need to provide facts, and keep the conversation focused there. The right was able to side track the conversation about abortion by focusing on “innocent baybeez,” and the morals of women who experience an unplanned pregnancy. We can’t let the right pick the field of battle on contraception.
Yes. And as much as I hate to say it, whenever we introduce any other issue into the conversation, we potentially shrink our audience. Economic justice, racial justice, and, heaven forbid, trans rights, are cues that we're coming from the left, and the listener can apply whatever negative stereotypes they already have on to our message. It works better if it goes the other way around. Start with issues that have broad support, like contraception, and when people trust us, then you can go on to explain why transgender is not a threat to civilization.
Exactly. Abortion rights have pretty widespread support across the population, including a significant minority of Republicans - I think I read somewhere recently that around 38% of Republicans didn’t want Roe overturned, but I could be remembering that wrong. At any rate, abortion itself, and contraception access are not leftist ideas.
Giving the right the opportunity to tie abortion rights to other concepts that are supported only by those on the left gives them the chance to claim that contraception and abortion are only the beginning. They’ll say that leftists are using those issues to get the camel’s nose under the tent, that the goal of the left isn’t abortion rights at all - it’s all of these *other* immoral/Marxist/anti-God/scary policies that are the real goal.
Economic Justice, racial Justice, trans rights, judicial reform, etc etc are all worthy goals, and should be addressed. But allowing the right to tie them to reproductive justice only serves to obscure what they’re doing, and the impact that banning contraception would have on every adult in the country.
Yes. At this election it's that 38% of Republicans I'm interested in (even if it's a lot less). If we could get just a handful of those voters to vote for Democratic candidates this time around, the impact would be huge.
"The PowerPoint claimed that barrier methods like condoms are ‘often ineffective,’ before getting to the overriding point and asserting that ‘the goal of birth control is preventing sexual intercourse from resulting in its natural, intended biological result: children.’"
I swear anti-abortion is little more than a creampie fetish.
I call them "fetish fetishers", their rubber models of fetuses are total fantasy.
LOL LAURA