"For well over an hour, the people of Llano — a town of about 3,400 deep in Texas Hill Country — approached the podium to speak out against abortion. While the procedure was now illegal across Texas, people were still driving women on Llano roads to reach abortion clinics in other states, the residents had been told. They said their city…
"For well over an hour, the people of Llano — a town of about 3,400 deep in Texas Hill Country — approached the podium to speak out against abortion. While the procedure was now illegal across Texas, people were still driving women on Llano roads to reach abortion clinics in other states, the residents had been told. They said their city had a responsibility to “fight the murders.” "
Feed on this, from the article. So if what's below is correct, it gives the zygote/embryo/fetus legal standing - personhood, right? Am i wrong? Where are the Constitutional lawyers challenging this stuff?
"By Dickson’s definition, “abortion trafficking” is the act of helping any pregnant woman cross state lines to end her pregnancy, lending her a ride, funding, or another form of support. While the term “trafficking” typically refers to people who are forced, tricked or coerced, Dickson’s definition applies to all people seeking abortions — because, he argues, “the unborn child is always taken against their will.”
The "unborn child." These people are CRAZY.
They're mad that abortions are happening outside of their control and they want to imprison the women of their state. Totally sick, fascist.
Establishing fetal personhood is one of the big aims of the forced birthers. If they can establish it at the state level, by laws like this, or allowing tax deductions for a fetus, etc., it’s just a hop skip and jump to putting personhood into federal law, or into the Constitution itself.
Trying to figure out how to word this compliment so it doesn't sound backhanded :) - Every time you post this, you demonstrate the kind of message discipline that our side needs. Short, simple, easy to understand, remember, and repeat. So like the opposite of 99% of my comments ;-D
It is admittedly frustrating how many times I need to say it but I will repeat myself as many times as I need to. People keep arguing fetal personhood has merit. It doesn't if they just take it to its logical conclusion. Really wish Jessica would pick this up.
I agree. The last we heard from them was Grace saying the lawyers had said it was like the idea that if a fetus is a person a woman isn't, and I had replied that's interesting because we thought it was answering how to handle it if a fetus were a person, so almost the opposite of that idea. I'd have to look it up; I have no clue what day it was. But yeah I didn't want to pester. I would like to hear from a lawyer on it myself.
Yeah I remember that conversation. And we're still having it like a couple months later. Not sure what else to do. I've tried to write out my arguments but it just sounds like an incomprehensible Freudian stream of consciousness.
To me it looks like what you have there is a whole book, condensed down to nine pages. It just needs to be reorganized and fleshed out, but you've got all the points you want to hit written down.
While I find the entire analysis enlightening, and the book would want everything, I think my brain is more focused on what does it take to win the argument with policy in the real world? How do we secure reproductive rights?
To that end I look for necessary and sufficient, to the exclusion of anything else. The background is important for understanding, but I don't want to make overturning capitalism a prerequisite to reproductive rights, not if I don't have to, and the same with racism, and religion, and so forth, because I don't want to make the challenge one iota bigger or harder than it needs to be. I think the more wrongs one tries to address at once, the less likely we are to achieve any of it. I know there are some who argue the opposite though.
I think we get the best chance with something that broadly fits in with Western legal (and economic) traditions, freedom and individual rights. Even though we know those have a long history of being used to justify oppression. It's just that I don't think trying to overturn the whole table is going to be as promising or fruitful; it's not going to get the buy-in that something narrower can and will. We know that the people of this country are broadly more in favor of reproductive rights than against them, and it's probably BECAUSE of American tradition and values rather than in spite of them. I'd much rather secure this battle before moving on to the next one, rather than link them all.
Anyway that's what I'm looking for, and I'm tired and I'm rambling :) You've always said they're trying to give fetuses rights to someone else's body and life functions that literally no one else is given. That's where I would start, if I were a lawyer.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read it. I do appreciate it. I've been pretty self-conscious about it. Yeah I was trying to write from a reproductive justice framework and its intersection with race, labor and capitalism. It is pretty dense considering the breadth I was trying to cover. But yeah succinctly it is about how fetuses have rights to other people's bodies that literally no one else is given.
Yes, as I worked my way through it, there were times when I was quick-reading or skim-reading, because I could see what you meant about the stream of consciousness and it was hard to take in. I could tell that it just needed more organization and more fleshing out, so it would be easier to follow. If everything was sorted into chapters and subchapters and the arguments were laid out more slowly and in detail, you'd have a book there. And it could certainly be made accessible to any reader if you take your time with every concept and add in more stories, illustrations, anecdotes (i.e. things that make it "easier" for the lay person). But yes all of that is the hard part!
I think my brain is kind of on emergency mode in this country, so maybe for me that's kind of the opposite of doing a whole book! :) I'm thinking, how do we hit back and deliver them mortal wounds? We can't take 49 years the way they did. We can't let the changes take root, and infect everything at every level. We can't let any of this become normal, because we can't lose the progress women have made in this country over the last five or six decades (and of course if they can they'll take even more than that).
Women won't go back. I recently read that Poland's birth rates plummeted 8% in a year after they banned abortion. I think a de facto birth strike will be the only way we can fight back. Most especially of white women. The more Black and brown births, the more the fascists will lose their goddamn minds. I just hope it won't come at the expense of high rates of poverty and maternal and infant deaths.
Yeah I remember that conversation. And we're still having it like a couple months later. Not sure what else to do. I've tried to write out my arguments but it just sounds like an incomprehensible Freudian stream of consciousness.
Where is our federal government? Where is the DOJ? Why do I have to keep sending money to ACLU and NARAL, etc to fight these creeps? Women pay taxes (despite earning less than their male counterparts) and should be protected by their government. More than half our population is under attack and I don’t see ANY attempt by this administration to FIGHT back! The message is loud and clear: Women are disposable in this country.
I don’t think that, since Dobbs, there’s much the federal government can do. They can fight these laws in the courts once they are passed, but unless we have sixty pro-choice senators and a majority in the house, there is a very limited number of things the federal government can do.
I also think they should be doing more to protect us from threats being made to women in politics, the judiciary, healthcare, etc. The GOP is threatening us and there should be a full-throated response from the DOJ that they won’t tolerate the threats as well as some of the restrictions such as travel.
I might replace 'can' with 'is allowed to'. And the thing about 'is allowed to' is that you don't know what you can get away with until you try. Our side tries to follow the rules of the system, and their side couldn't care less. It's certainly possible that if we follow suit it would backfire, but thinking about that is different from ruling it out from the get go. And to her point, the DOJ could at least go ahead and sue everybody and anybody, even if none of them succeed.
This. Just because someone says a state has the right to do this doesn't mean the administration should just fold. I keep repeating it's so much like the 1850s.
Also, they don't know that. If a woman can be willing to sacrifice her life for her child, and they consider that to be so noble and holy and the highest purpose of woman blah blah blah, then an "unborn child" can be willing to sacrifice its life for its mother too. That makes at least as much sense.
I like that concept, Zach. I’m going to let that idea ferment in my brain for awhile. Maybe we can turn it into something we can use - though I’m sure their first counter would be that the fetus isn’t freely volunteering to do so. Their assumption is always that the fetus is an unwilling “victim” of abortion.
The second that egg is fertilized the woman ceases to be a person, incapable of any interest other than that of the fetus. If that's what they want then that's how they should be selling it, and let's see what the people think.
🤦 These silly little men and their silly little egos! Yes to all three of your bullet points. And, since they brought it up, why would the miniature people be in the sperm and not the eggs? I remember learning that a baby girl already has all the eggs she'll ever have when she's born. (Someone please correct me if that's wrong!) So if everything is "pre-formed", it would be in the EGG, which ALWAYS exists, and not the sperm, which are continuously produced and discarded. But then maybe they'd know that if they realized that if there were a God, God would either be a They or a She, certainly not a He; again that's just silly. So you know that as soon as they start with God being He, everything else they say after that is going to be wrong. Honestly sometimes I don't get it. What do we men have that's so compelling, other than, "Man Monkey strong! Beat up other Man Monkey! Grrr!" 😂 Is that really all it comes down to? Maybe so!
I think I learned that about eggs in my first high school biology class 50 years ago. Short of possibly monotremes I think it is true for all warm blooded creatures.
"For well over an hour, the people of Llano — a town of about 3,400 deep in Texas Hill Country — approached the podium to speak out against abortion. While the procedure was now illegal across Texas, people were still driving women on Llano roads to reach abortion clinics in other states, the residents had been told. They said their city had a responsibility to “fight the murders.” "
From WaPo article today. Disgusting.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/01/texas-abortion-highways/
Feed on this, from the article. So if what's below is correct, it gives the zygote/embryo/fetus legal standing - personhood, right? Am i wrong? Where are the Constitutional lawyers challenging this stuff?
"By Dickson’s definition, “abortion trafficking” is the act of helping any pregnant woman cross state lines to end her pregnancy, lending her a ride, funding, or another form of support. While the term “trafficking” typically refers to people who are forced, tricked or coerced, Dickson’s definition applies to all people seeking abortions — because, he argues, “the unborn child is always taken against their will.”
The "unborn child." These people are CRAZY.
They're mad that abortions are happening outside of their control and they want to imprison the women of their state. Totally sick, fascist.
Establishing fetal personhood is one of the big aims of the forced birthers. If they can establish it at the state level, by laws like this, or allowing tax deductions for a fetus, etc., it’s just a hop skip and jump to putting personhood into federal law, or into the Constitution itself.
If fetuses have personhood, the state is literally saying women are their chattel, though. Which violates 5a, 13a and 14a.
Trying to figure out how to word this compliment so it doesn't sound backhanded :) - Every time you post this, you demonstrate the kind of message discipline that our side needs. Short, simple, easy to understand, remember, and repeat. So like the opposite of 99% of my comments ;-D
It is admittedly frustrating how many times I need to say it but I will repeat myself as many times as I need to. People keep arguing fetal personhood has merit. It doesn't if they just take it to its logical conclusion. Really wish Jessica would pick this up.
I agree. The last we heard from them was Grace saying the lawyers had said it was like the idea that if a fetus is a person a woman isn't, and I had replied that's interesting because we thought it was answering how to handle it if a fetus were a person, so almost the opposite of that idea. I'd have to look it up; I have no clue what day it was. But yeah I didn't want to pester. I would like to hear from a lawyer on it myself.
Yeah I remember that conversation. And we're still having it like a couple months later. Not sure what else to do. I've tried to write out my arguments but it just sounds like an incomprehensible Freudian stream of consciousness.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1em0_HLU9lHYjVkyva5QMkOc2aDGkuRyXuyMqTwoRK_Q/edit?usp=drivesdk
To me it looks like what you have there is a whole book, condensed down to nine pages. It just needs to be reorganized and fleshed out, but you've got all the points you want to hit written down.
While I find the entire analysis enlightening, and the book would want everything, I think my brain is more focused on what does it take to win the argument with policy in the real world? How do we secure reproductive rights?
To that end I look for necessary and sufficient, to the exclusion of anything else. The background is important for understanding, but I don't want to make overturning capitalism a prerequisite to reproductive rights, not if I don't have to, and the same with racism, and religion, and so forth, because I don't want to make the challenge one iota bigger or harder than it needs to be. I think the more wrongs one tries to address at once, the less likely we are to achieve any of it. I know there are some who argue the opposite though.
I think we get the best chance with something that broadly fits in with Western legal (and economic) traditions, freedom and individual rights. Even though we know those have a long history of being used to justify oppression. It's just that I don't think trying to overturn the whole table is going to be as promising or fruitful; it's not going to get the buy-in that something narrower can and will. We know that the people of this country are broadly more in favor of reproductive rights than against them, and it's probably BECAUSE of American tradition and values rather than in spite of them. I'd much rather secure this battle before moving on to the next one, rather than link them all.
Anyway that's what I'm looking for, and I'm tired and I'm rambling :) You've always said they're trying to give fetuses rights to someone else's body and life functions that literally no one else is given. That's where I would start, if I were a lawyer.
Btw I go into more detail about this argument of fetal exceptionalism. And how this is about punishment and not "saving babies."
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1m3jxrBEo6-qIQ6CzecBapzeCWsv9sTMcIHuaWP_MHUg/edit?usp=drivesdk
Can't tackle this tonight but maybe another time! :)
I might should have posted this one first since it's more on this topic. But yes maybe another time. Thanks again!
Thank you so much for taking the time to read it. I do appreciate it. I've been pretty self-conscious about it. Yeah I was trying to write from a reproductive justice framework and its intersection with race, labor and capitalism. It is pretty dense considering the breadth I was trying to cover. But yeah succinctly it is about how fetuses have rights to other people's bodies that literally no one else is given.
Yes, as I worked my way through it, there were times when I was quick-reading or skim-reading, because I could see what you meant about the stream of consciousness and it was hard to take in. I could tell that it just needed more organization and more fleshing out, so it would be easier to follow. If everything was sorted into chapters and subchapters and the arguments were laid out more slowly and in detail, you'd have a book there. And it could certainly be made accessible to any reader if you take your time with every concept and add in more stories, illustrations, anecdotes (i.e. things that make it "easier" for the lay person). But yes all of that is the hard part!
I think my brain is kind of on emergency mode in this country, so maybe for me that's kind of the opposite of doing a whole book! :) I'm thinking, how do we hit back and deliver them mortal wounds? We can't take 49 years the way they did. We can't let the changes take root, and infect everything at every level. We can't let any of this become normal, because we can't lose the progress women have made in this country over the last five or six decades (and of course if they can they'll take even more than that).
Women won't go back. I recently read that Poland's birth rates plummeted 8% in a year after they banned abortion. I think a de facto birth strike will be the only way we can fight back. Most especially of white women. The more Black and brown births, the more the fascists will lose their goddamn minds. I just hope it won't come at the expense of high rates of poverty and maternal and infant deaths.
Yeah I remember that conversation. And we're still having it like a couple months later. Not sure what else to do. I've tried to write out my arguments but it just sounds like an incomprehensible Freudian stream of consciousness.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1em0_HLU9lHYjVkyva5QMkOc2aDGkuRyXuyMqTwoRK_Q/edit?usp=drivesdk
Where is our federal government? Where is the DOJ? Why do I have to keep sending money to ACLU and NARAL, etc to fight these creeps? Women pay taxes (despite earning less than their male counterparts) and should be protected by their government. More than half our population is under attack and I don’t see ANY attempt by this administration to FIGHT back! The message is loud and clear: Women are disposable in this country.
Lesley,
I don’t think that, since Dobbs, there’s much the federal government can do. They can fight these laws in the courts once they are passed, but unless we have sixty pro-choice senators and a majority in the house, there is a very limited number of things the federal government can do.
You’re right about needing more Dems in Congress to pass new laws, but I am longing for an equal and opposite reaction from the DOJ to laws being created in states that take away women’s rights. Here’s one example: https://www.padilla.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/padilla-colleagues-urge-doj-to-do-more-to-protect-americans-right-to-travel-for-reproductive-health-care/
I also think they should be doing more to protect us from threats being made to women in politics, the judiciary, healthcare, etc. The GOP is threatening us and there should be a full-throated response from the DOJ that they won’t tolerate the threats as well as some of the restrictions such as travel.
I might replace 'can' with 'is allowed to'. And the thing about 'is allowed to' is that you don't know what you can get away with until you try. Our side tries to follow the rules of the system, and their side couldn't care less. It's certainly possible that if we follow suit it would backfire, but thinking about that is different from ruling it out from the get go. And to her point, the DOJ could at least go ahead and sue everybody and anybody, even if none of them succeed.
This. Just because someone says a state has the right to do this doesn't mean the administration should just fold. I keep repeating it's so much like the 1850s.
Also, they don't know that. If a woman can be willing to sacrifice her life for her child, and they consider that to be so noble and holy and the highest purpose of woman blah blah blah, then an "unborn child" can be willing to sacrifice its life for its mother too. That makes at least as much sense.
I like that concept, Zach. I’m going to let that idea ferment in my brain for awhile. Maybe we can turn it into something we can use - though I’m sure their first counter would be that the fetus isn’t freely volunteering to do so. Their assumption is always that the fetus is an unwilling “victim” of abortion.
The second that egg is fertilized the woman ceases to be a person, incapable of any interest other than that of the fetus. If that's what they want then that's how they should be selling it, and let's see what the people think.
🤦 These silly little men and their silly little egos! Yes to all three of your bullet points. And, since they brought it up, why would the miniature people be in the sperm and not the eggs? I remember learning that a baby girl already has all the eggs she'll ever have when she's born. (Someone please correct me if that's wrong!) So if everything is "pre-formed", it would be in the EGG, which ALWAYS exists, and not the sperm, which are continuously produced and discarded. But then maybe they'd know that if they realized that if there were a God, God would either be a They or a She, certainly not a He; again that's just silly. So you know that as soon as they start with God being He, everything else they say after that is going to be wrong. Honestly sometimes I don't get it. What do we men have that's so compelling, other than, "Man Monkey strong! Beat up other Man Monkey! Grrr!" 😂 Is that really all it comes down to? Maybe so!
I think I learned that about eggs in my first high school biology class 50 years ago. Short of possibly monotremes I think it is true for all warm blooded creatures.