The court cases to revoke the FDA's approval of mifepristone by judicial fiat threaten ALL of Big Pharma's drug approvals. And profits. The millions they spend to get FDA approval will guarantee them NOTHING, if a judge decides to void that approval 5 years later. Since 90% of the Senate takes big bucks from Big Pharma, that should get their attention. Congress must pass a 3 year lookback limit for ALL approval challenges, absent new safety data. The current challenges contain zero new data.
Thank you for going and representing us. I wish I could’ve told you in time about my idea that women have a different Hierarchy Of Needs than men. It’s much more important for women to not have their baby-carrying ability to be a liability, so they can decide when they want to experience the physical, mental, emotional and financial setbacks often involved in having a baby. Women need unfettered access to birth control to have the same level of autonomy to meet their own needs and move up the hierarchy of needs before having a baby (and to combat the ever-present threat of sexual assault that men rarely experience).
I’m watching you now Jessica and you’re doing incredible, especially with the impromptu questions! You’re so inspiring.
I believe that the politicians are practicing medicine without a license. They are making decisions based on a “one size fits all” which is not the case with healthcare.
Remind the Dems that Roe fell on their watch with zero preparation & zero solutions afterwards. Years of watching Dems not codify Roe will not be forgotten. Considering Biden won’t even say the word “abortion” it’s very clear they have no intention of doing anything and will just use reproductive rights to garner votes and continue to leave us high & dry.
We know how often and how shamelessly Republicans are lying their way through this campaign, once again. Let’s suppose that Democrats are onside. Talk to them like they are reasonable people who live up to their party’s name. And democracy needs to be universal or it is not democracy. Bodily autonomy is a right for everyone.
What Democrats need to do most urgently is to tell the truth every opportunity they get. To do this they need to get educated very quickly. When a lie is told they need to be ready with the facts. Republicans have been conditioned, especially since Trump hit the stage in his first election, to believe only what comes out of a Republican’s mouth. It still might not be too late to save some of them but the facts must be repeated three times more than the lies. And let’s be clear, there is no such thing as alternative facts. Saying that just makes it look like a reasonable, well-informed person has two reasonable choices. They don’t. There is only one reasonable choice and everything else is chaos. The candidates need to be armed with the facts for this battle.
I would remind them what bodily autonomy has meant legally-that it is not just about reproduction. Provide examples such as no one, man nor woman, can be forced to be an organ donor, even after they have died. No one except pregnant people can be denied medical care until they are nearly certain to be dead (as in cases of sepsis)...and others.
I was wondering if these women senators could somehow persuade Liz Cheney and her 'girls' (Hutchinson, Griffin, and others) to join this campaign against abortion bans. You see, I think Liz Cheney will do anything to stop trump and also Haleys and others now because by 2028 she wants everyone to forget trump and join her. Once trump is gone from the scene, I think it is easy to get rid of all these 'evangelical' mini-trumps or they will jump on another bandwagon in pursuit of their grift and corruption.
Tell them my daughter is not going to die for Ted Cruz's ignorance about the female body. Tell them my daughter is not going to die because Mike Johnson is a porn-sex weirdo with creepy vibes that wants to punish women to fulfill his sick sexual fantasies about power. Tell them my daughter and no other women should ever be legally obligated to die and that's what abortion restrictions do--legally murder women. Tell them my daughter's not going to die and I don't care what I have to do. If nothing is off the table for Republicans, then nothing is off the table for me. And a shit ton of other women. I've never seen so many women with rage in their eyes and adrenaline in their veins, ready to murder.
But Democrats need to publicize women's stories--it's women's lives on the line. No, I don't mean Kamal Harris. I mean everyday women on tv in every state on every channel telling their stories. So help me God if Democrats can't get away from the academic bullshit data points no one cares about, we're gonna mess around and fuck this up, too. LET WOMEN TELL THEIR STORIES!
p.s. before anyone gets all hot and bothered, I AM an academic but not the blind kind. How many times will it take us to learn from our mistakes?
P.s. I love Kamala Harris. It’s not that. And I’m glad she’s speaking about abortion rights. But the difference in strength, the ability to move and change minds--it’s always first-hand experience that has the most power!
You can't legislate healthcare, and abortion is healthcare. TRUST WOMEN to know what is right for themselves and their families and the doctors who advise them.
If I had a chance to talk to senators, I would say:
1) You wildly underestimate women's anger and you need to come out swinging. This issue is a MAJOR election winner (see the 7 or 8 state races) and they need to position themselves accordingly. Support for abortion rights has never been higher since Roe was passed.
2) You must drive home that if a Republican president is elected, blue states will lose choice. So many people don't seem to understand that a national ban is imminent. They kept calling us hysterical when we said Roe was going away. We weren't hysterical then and we aren't hysterical saying a national ban is coming.
3) Fetal personhood is also a very real possibility, especially given the Supreme Court, and they should not rest easy about that.
4) Types of birth control are going to be under attack.
5) Campaign on (and FULFILL) protection of women and TRUE pro-life policies that will support hungry children, parental leave, affordable housing, etc. So many people have so many needs and none of them are being fulfilled.
6) Also emphasize the closure of rural hospitals and maternity units and how this is hurting rural people and red states
7) As other people have pointed out, ALL women and girls in ALL states need to have the right to abortion. Mandate it on a federal level. The states aren't allowed to pass their own gun laws (see Bruen), but they CAN outlaw abortion for women. It's a travesty.
So glad that you will be the one representing our voice and our collective outrage at what is being done to women in this country. Here is my list-
#1-How is it ok - once a baby is born with the capacity to be pregnant, that baby immediately loses their rights as a citizen in an anti-abortion state. That baby falls into the dehumanizing class of people in the United States who are forced to be on the brink of death before judges and legislators give permission for lifesaving healthcare - and even then, barely or pretty much never.
#2-How is it ok - A small group of religious people are being allowed to ruin all healthcare in red states - you are criminalizing people who spend much longer than most of us building their career. You are ruining OB/GYN care for ALL citizens in that state as we see by the stories. No one is spared. Some may have more resources and options. It affects anyone moving to the state including doctors. Healthcare deserts are a serious and deadly problem. Yenni is just one example that we know about. HOw many others are there?
#3-Which brings me to - Maternal Mortality. This needs to be emphasized heavily and looked at Nationally. NO STATE should be allowed to ‘disband’ their maternal mortality task force. We need to know how many women are dying in these anti-abortion states and this needs to be spoken about loudly and all the time! After all, the main argument is that Dems are “killing babies”. I would argue the opposite - GOP is killing woman and babies, We don’t need to know the names and location of women but we need to be told their stories.
#4-How is it ok - you could wear a white coat and pass yourself off as providing healthcare.
Isn’t this against the law? Pretending to practice medicine without a license? Crisis Pregnancy centers should be forced to be explicit to what they are and cannot get away with violating HIPPA. If you're going to claim rights as a religious organization with free speech rights then you have to advertise as such. You can’t hide this from the public and take taxpayer money with no oversight in how that money is wasted.
Please thank them for their critical work to fight Republican gaslighting about crisis pregnancy centers - the ground game of the anti-abortion movement - and educate the conference on the research about what CPCs are and do. The Dems on House Ways & Means, which marked up their bill to prohibit HHS from cutting CPC eligibility for TANF funding, were powerful and on message, to a member, speaking truth and forcefully confronting anti-abortion pol BS. Thank you, Jessica!
Tell them about me... I'm a middle-aged white male who was opposed to Vermont's "abortion is a fundamental right throughout pregnancy" constitutional amendment when it was enacted in 2019. (Its only requirement is that providers must submit reports to the state.)
The regular drum beat of red state pregnancy horror stories has completely upended my thinking. I'm a strong supporter of Vermont's law now because of the results... we don't have those horror stories, or any of the "post bith abortions," "abortion vacations," or other fear-mongering nonsense the PL people said we'd see.
As an aside, Jessica, your emails were a primary contributor to my paradigm shift.... good messaging really can change minds
Tell them to consistently make their opponents state that they want to ban abortions and to force the issue to the front of every discussion/debate. Abortion is a winning issue.
They need to combat the “abortion hurts women” narrative. So many people really really want to believe this. It allows people to reconcile the cognitive dissonance inherent in supporting abortion bans. It is a narrative that is going to the Supreme Court this year.
The court cases to revoke the FDA's approval of mifepristone by judicial fiat threaten ALL of Big Pharma's drug approvals. And profits. The millions they spend to get FDA approval will guarantee them NOTHING, if a judge decides to void that approval 5 years later. Since 90% of the Senate takes big bucks from Big Pharma, that should get their attention. Congress must pass a 3 year lookback limit for ALL approval challenges, absent new safety data. The current challenges contain zero new data.
Thank you for going and representing us. I wish I could’ve told you in time about my idea that women have a different Hierarchy Of Needs than men. It’s much more important for women to not have their baby-carrying ability to be a liability, so they can decide when they want to experience the physical, mental, emotional and financial setbacks often involved in having a baby. Women need unfettered access to birth control to have the same level of autonomy to meet their own needs and move up the hierarchy of needs before having a baby (and to combat the ever-present threat of sexual assault that men rarely experience).
I’m watching you now Jessica and you’re doing incredible, especially with the impromptu questions! You’re so inspiring.
I believe that the politicians are practicing medicine without a license. They are making decisions based on a “one size fits all” which is not the case with healthcare.
Remind the Dems that Roe fell on their watch with zero preparation & zero solutions afterwards. Years of watching Dems not codify Roe will not be forgotten. Considering Biden won’t even say the word “abortion” it’s very clear they have no intention of doing anything and will just use reproductive rights to garner votes and continue to leave us high & dry.
We know how often and how shamelessly Republicans are lying their way through this campaign, once again. Let’s suppose that Democrats are onside. Talk to them like they are reasonable people who live up to their party’s name. And democracy needs to be universal or it is not democracy. Bodily autonomy is a right for everyone.
What Democrats need to do most urgently is to tell the truth every opportunity they get. To do this they need to get educated very quickly. When a lie is told they need to be ready with the facts. Republicans have been conditioned, especially since Trump hit the stage in his first election, to believe only what comes out of a Republican’s mouth. It still might not be too late to save some of them but the facts must be repeated three times more than the lies. And let’s be clear, there is no such thing as alternative facts. Saying that just makes it look like a reasonable, well-informed person has two reasonable choices. They don’t. There is only one reasonable choice and everything else is chaos. The candidates need to be armed with the facts for this battle.
I would remind them what bodily autonomy has meant legally-that it is not just about reproduction. Provide examples such as no one, man nor woman, can be forced to be an organ donor, even after they have died. No one except pregnant people can be denied medical care until they are nearly certain to be dead (as in cases of sepsis)...and others.
I was wondering if these women senators could somehow persuade Liz Cheney and her 'girls' (Hutchinson, Griffin, and others) to join this campaign against abortion bans. You see, I think Liz Cheney will do anything to stop trump and also Haleys and others now because by 2028 she wants everyone to forget trump and join her. Once trump is gone from the scene, I think it is easy to get rid of all these 'evangelical' mini-trumps or they will jump on another bandwagon in pursuit of their grift and corruption.
Tell them my daughter is not going to die for Ted Cruz's ignorance about the female body. Tell them my daughter is not going to die because Mike Johnson is a porn-sex weirdo with creepy vibes that wants to punish women to fulfill his sick sexual fantasies about power. Tell them my daughter and no other women should ever be legally obligated to die and that's what abortion restrictions do--legally murder women. Tell them my daughter's not going to die and I don't care what I have to do. If nothing is off the table for Republicans, then nothing is off the table for me. And a shit ton of other women. I've never seen so many women with rage in their eyes and adrenaline in their veins, ready to murder.
But Democrats need to publicize women's stories--it's women's lives on the line. No, I don't mean Kamal Harris. I mean everyday women on tv in every state on every channel telling their stories. So help me God if Democrats can't get away from the academic bullshit data points no one cares about, we're gonna mess around and fuck this up, too. LET WOMEN TELL THEIR STORIES!
p.s. before anyone gets all hot and bothered, I AM an academic but not the blind kind. How many times will it take us to learn from our mistakes?
P.s. I love Kamala Harris. It’s not that. And I’m glad she’s speaking about abortion rights. But the difference in strength, the ability to move and change minds--it’s always first-hand experience that has the most power!
You can't legislate healthcare, and abortion is healthcare. TRUST WOMEN to know what is right for themselves and their families and the doctors who advise them.
If I had a chance to talk to senators, I would say:
1) You wildly underestimate women's anger and you need to come out swinging. This issue is a MAJOR election winner (see the 7 or 8 state races) and they need to position themselves accordingly. Support for abortion rights has never been higher since Roe was passed.
2) You must drive home that if a Republican president is elected, blue states will lose choice. So many people don't seem to understand that a national ban is imminent. They kept calling us hysterical when we said Roe was going away. We weren't hysterical then and we aren't hysterical saying a national ban is coming.
3) Fetal personhood is also a very real possibility, especially given the Supreme Court, and they should not rest easy about that.
4) Types of birth control are going to be under attack.
5) Campaign on (and FULFILL) protection of women and TRUE pro-life policies that will support hungry children, parental leave, affordable housing, etc. So many people have so many needs and none of them are being fulfilled.
6) Also emphasize the closure of rural hospitals and maternity units and how this is hurting rural people and red states
7) As other people have pointed out, ALL women and girls in ALL states need to have the right to abortion. Mandate it on a federal level. The states aren't allowed to pass their own gun laws (see Bruen), but they CAN outlaw abortion for women. It's a travesty.
I'm cheering you on!
So glad that you will be the one representing our voice and our collective outrage at what is being done to women in this country. Here is my list-
#1-How is it ok - once a baby is born with the capacity to be pregnant, that baby immediately loses their rights as a citizen in an anti-abortion state. That baby falls into the dehumanizing class of people in the United States who are forced to be on the brink of death before judges and legislators give permission for lifesaving healthcare - and even then, barely or pretty much never.
#2-How is it ok - A small group of religious people are being allowed to ruin all healthcare in red states - you are criminalizing people who spend much longer than most of us building their career. You are ruining OB/GYN care for ALL citizens in that state as we see by the stories. No one is spared. Some may have more resources and options. It affects anyone moving to the state including doctors. Healthcare deserts are a serious and deadly problem. Yenni is just one example that we know about. HOw many others are there?
#3-Which brings me to - Maternal Mortality. This needs to be emphasized heavily and looked at Nationally. NO STATE should be allowed to ‘disband’ their maternal mortality task force. We need to know how many women are dying in these anti-abortion states and this needs to be spoken about loudly and all the time! After all, the main argument is that Dems are “killing babies”. I would argue the opposite - GOP is killing woman and babies, We don’t need to know the names and location of women but we need to be told their stories.
#4-How is it ok - you could wear a white coat and pass yourself off as providing healthcare.
Isn’t this against the law? Pretending to practice medicine without a license? Crisis Pregnancy centers should be forced to be explicit to what they are and cannot get away with violating HIPPA. If you're going to claim rights as a religious organization with free speech rights then you have to advertise as such. You can’t hide this from the public and take taxpayer money with no oversight in how that money is wasted.
Please thank them for their critical work to fight Republican gaslighting about crisis pregnancy centers - the ground game of the anti-abortion movement - and educate the conference on the research about what CPCs are and do. The Dems on House Ways & Means, which marked up their bill to prohibit HHS from cutting CPC eligibility for TANF funding, were powerful and on message, to a member, speaking truth and forcefully confronting anti-abortion pol BS. Thank you, Jessica!
Tell them about me... I'm a middle-aged white male who was opposed to Vermont's "abortion is a fundamental right throughout pregnancy" constitutional amendment when it was enacted in 2019. (Its only requirement is that providers must submit reports to the state.)
The regular drum beat of red state pregnancy horror stories has completely upended my thinking. I'm a strong supporter of Vermont's law now because of the results... we don't have those horror stories, or any of the "post bith abortions," "abortion vacations," or other fear-mongering nonsense the PL people said we'd see.
As an aside, Jessica, your emails were a primary contributor to my paradigm shift.... good messaging really can change minds
Tell them to consistently make their opponents state that they want to ban abortions and to force the issue to the front of every discussion/debate. Abortion is a winning issue.
They need to combat the “abortion hurts women” narrative. So many people really really want to believe this. It allows people to reconcile the cognitive dissonance inherent in supporting abortion bans. It is a narrative that is going to the Supreme Court this year.
Question to any senator: if your daughter and her baby couldn’t both live, who would you choose and why.
Best of courage for all you do, Jessica. A NM subscriber back to Feministing days.