#6 week abortion ban
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Bad news and good news out of Ron DeSantis's Florida.
The Florida Supreme Court will allow a new 6-week abortion ban to take effect in May. BUT the court also approved a ballot initiative for November which would restore reproductive freedom in the state.
Floridians will be able to vote on abortion protections this fall, the state’s Supreme Court ruled Monday—a win celebrated by the state’s Democrats despite the court, in a separate case, also paving the way for a law to take effect that will ban all abortions after six weeks.
That six-week abortion ban, passed by Florida’s Republican-majority legislature and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis last year, will go into effect on May 1. That measure can be undone by voters come November, however.
The court’s decision is expected to reverberate across Florida and the southeast. A privacy protection clause in the Florida constitution had allowed the Sunshine State to enjoy abortion access up to 15 weeks despite DeSantis being at the helm—access that women relied upon in nearby states like Alabama and Mississippi, where abortion is outright banned, and in Georgia and South Carolina, which have laws similar to Florida’s soon-to-be-active six-week ban.
DeSantis appointed most of the Florida Supreme Court justices. Another reason why we should pay more attention to state government – regardless of state.
Florida’s Supreme Court, which had five of its seven justices appointed by DeSantis, ruled in favor of the state on Monday, 6-1. Now, Florida women will often be barred from having an abortion before many realize they’re even pregnant.
The court approval of the upcoming referendum, actually a Florida constitution amendment called Amendment 4 on the 2024 ballot, was narrow.
That amendment, if it received at least 60 percent of votes in favor of it, would significantly protect abortion access in Florida. Its text reads, in part, that “no law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before fetal viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.” Viability is estimated to be around six months of pregnancy.
The Florida Supreme Court voted 4-3 in favor of approving the amendment to reach the ballot—a tight victory for abortion advocates like Planned Parenthood, which has championed the proposed amendment.
60% is a relatively high bar. But Kansas, arguably more conservative than Florida, had an abortion referendum in 2022 in which the reproductive freedom side got 59.16% of the vote; the Kansas election required just a simple majority but the final result exceeded that by almost 10%.
The necessary 60% for the Florida reproductive freedom amendment required in Florida won't be a cake walk but it is quite doable.
As many as 11 states could have reproductive freedom on the ballot as referendums this year.
Where abortion rights could be on the ballot this fall
^^^ Just to clarify: New York already offers strong reproductive legal protections. The upcoming referendum, if passed, would place freedom of choice into the NY constitution. It doesn't get more secure than that in state law.
#florida#6 week abortion ban#abortion#reproductive freedom#a woman's right to choose#ron desantis#florida supreme court#florida abortion referendum#amendment 4#state government#roe v. wade#restore roe#keep republicans out of your bedroom and doctor's office#republicans hate freedom#election 2024#vote blue no matter who
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Florida's Legislature passes a 6-week abortion ban
Florida’s Republican-dominated Legislature passed a ban on most abortions after six weeks Thursday, sending the bill to Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has said he would sign it.
Final passage came after a marathon floor hearing in the state House, which passed the proposal largely along party lines in a 70-40 vote after the Senate passed it on April 3.
Democrats in the chamber forcefully opposed the legislation but were vastly outnumbered by Republican supermajorities in both chambers. GOP House Speaker Paul Renner had to close the public viewing galleries after protesters threw what appeared to be paper onto the House floor.
It capped off what has been a hugely contentious process to pass the legislation, SB 300, which DeSantis has signaled support for, but it puts him in a tricky political position. He is considering a 2024 bid for president, but most public polling shows a six-week abortion ban is unpopular among both political parties.
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Six-week abortion ban approved in the state of Florida
On Apr. 13, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis decided to take inspiration from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who implemented one of the strictest bans on abortion nationwide, by signing his own six-week abortion into law. DeSantis signed the bill a few hours after the Legislature passed it that afternoon—however, he didn’t announce that he did so until after 11 p.m. For those who experience rape or incest, or…
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um ok im definitely getting an iud this year even if i have to pay a thousand bucks lol.
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25Sep22
Rainbow Cowboy Edition
Things in Texas are bigger and braver,
And thanks to our rainbow-flag waver,
Intended or not,
OTB met H-SLOT ...
An image queer Larries will savor.
Rhinestone Cowboy Edition
In Austin, his fit made us swoon,
With sequin fringe shaded maroon;
No, not Harry, in fact,
But his little mic pack—
Decked out for a wee gay saloon.
#larry#harry#harry styles#hslot austin 1#harry picked up a rainbow flag as he's wont to do#but this one had 'only the brave' and louis' x-eyed smiley face written on it#some people think he grabbed it intentionally over another flag#some people think he just grabbed what was convenient#doesn't matter as it's not a larry proof#rather a moment for queer larries to enjoy for themselves#harry wore a texas brown/orange and white jacket#detailed with maroon sequin fringe#and his little mic pack was dressed in fringe too uwu#i have been meaning to write an ode to his mic pack pouch for two years now#and the fringe sent me#also harry bent down to tie pauli's shoe mid-show#which is just ultimate harry#and spoke up for bodily autonomy#especially important in texas which has banned abortion after 6 weeks#limerick-hs#september 25#2022
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The Worst Advice You Could Ever Get About Abortion
The Worst Advice You Could Ever Get About Abortion
An Open Letter from a Black Woman
Allow me to be transparent for a moment. The title of this post is clearly for clickbait because I need people to read and understand this perspective I am about to share, thoroughly.
Transparency:
I am 39 years oldI am a black woman Born and raised in TexasI vote for republican candidatesI vote for Democratic candidatesI am a motherI have experienced…
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#abortion#abortion 2020#abortion 2021#abortion 2021 news#abortion 26 states#abortion 28 days after baby born#abortion 6 week law#abortion 6 weeks Texas#abortion 72 hour waiting period#abortion 9th amendment#abortion access#abortion access front#abortion access fund#abortion amendment#abortion and supreme court#abortion Arizona#abortion art#abortion articles#abortion ban#abortion ban ectopic pregnancy#abortion ban new York#abortion ban states#abortion before roe v wade#abortion bill#abortion by country#abortion by state#abortion case#abortion clinic#abortion clinic near me#abortion clinic nyc
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if you want to know what it's like to live in ohio, just know that my town designated itself as a sanctuary city for the unborn, which meant that it was illegal to get or assist someone else to get an abortion, even if the support consisted of giving them money to get an abortion in columbus or whatever.
#it was later overturned so we are no longer a sanctuary city for the unborn lol#state law bans abortion after 6 weeks but im not sure if that law is in effect rn or if the state supreme court has intervened#but if today's election and the nov election go well abortion will be legal up to fetal viability (~24 weeks)
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Conservatives are fringe outliers - and leftists could learn from them
The Republican Party, a coalition between Big Business farmers and turkeys who’ll vote for Christmas (Red Scare obsessed cowards, apocalyptic white nationalists, religious fanatics, etc) has fallen to its bizarre, violent, noisy radical wing, who are obsessed with policies that are completely irrelevant to the majority of Americans.
As Oliver Willis writes, the views of the radical right — which are also the policies of the GOP — are wildly out of step with the US political view:
https://www.oliverexplains.com/p/conservatives-arent-like-normal-americans
The press likes to frame American politics as “narrowly divided,” but the reality is that Republicans’ electoral victories are due to voter suppression and antimajoritarian institutions (the Senate and Electoral College, etc), not popularity. Democrats consistently outperform the GOP in national races. Dems won majorities in 1992/6, and beat the GOP in 2000, 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020. The only presidential race the GOP won on popular votes since 1988 was 2004, when GW Bush eked out a plurality (not a majority).
But, as Willis says, Dems “act like it is 1984 and that they are outliers in a nation of Reagan voters,” echoing a stilted media narrative. The GOP’s platform just isn’t popular. Take the groomer panic: 71% of Americans approve of same-sex marriage. The people losing their shit about queer people are a strange, tiny minority.
Every one of the GOP’s tentpole issues is wildly unpopular: expanding access to assault rifles, banning immigration, lowering taxes on the rich, cutting social programs, forcing pregnant people to bear unwanted children, etc. This is true all the way up to the GOP’s coalescing support for Trump as their 2024 candidate. Trump has lost every popular vote he’s ever stood for, and owes his term in the Oval Office to the antimajoritarian Electoral College system, gerrymandering, and massive voter suppression.
Willis correctly points out that Dem leaders are basically “normal” center-right politicians, not radicals. And, unlike their GOP counterparts, politicians like Clinton, Obama and Biden don’t hide their disdain for the radical wing of their party. Even never-Trumper Republicans are afraid of their base. Romney declared himself “severely conservative” and McCain “put scare quotes around ‘health of the mother’ provisions for abortion rights.”
The GOP fringe imposes incredible discipline on their leaders. Take all the nonsense about “woke capitalism”: on the one hand, it’s absurd to call union-busting, tax-dodging, worker-screwing companies “woke” (even if they sell Pride flags for a couple of weeks every year).
But on the other hand? The GOP leadership have actually declared war on the biggest corporations in America, to the point that the WSJ says that “Republicans and Big Business broke up”:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/republicans-corporations-donations-pacs-9b5b202b
But America is a two-party system and there are plenty of people who’ll pull the lever for any Republican. This means that when the GOP comes under the control of its swivel-eyed loon wing, the swivel-eyed loons wield power far beyond the number of people who agree with them.
There’s an important lesson there for Dems, whose establishment is volubly proud of its independence from its voters. The Biden administration is a weirdly perfect illustration of this “independence.” The Biden admin is a kind of referee, doling out policies and appointments to its competing wings, without any coherence or consistency.
That’s how you get incredible appointments like Lina Khan at the FTC and Jonathan Kanter at the DoJ Antitrust Division and Rohit Chopra at the Consumer Finance Protection Bureat — the progressive wing of the party bargained for these key appointments and then played their cards very well, getting incredible, hard-charging, hyper-competent fighters in those roles.
Likewise, Jared Bernstein, finally confirmed as Council of Economic Advisers chair after an interminable wrangle:
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2023-06-16-team-biden/
And Julie Su, acting labor secretary, who just delivered a six-year contract to west coast dockworkers with 8–10% raises in the first year, paid retroactively for the year they worked without a contract:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/06/14/statement-from-president-biden-on-labor-agreement-at-west-coast-ports/
But the Biden admin’s unwillingness to side with one wing of the party also produces catastrophic failures, like the martyrdom of Gigi Sohn, who was subjected to years of vicious personal attacks while awaiting confirmation to the FCC, undefended by the Biden admin, left to twist in the wind until she gave it up as a bad job:
https://doctorow.medium.com/culture-war-bullshit-stole-your-broadband-4ce1ffb16dc5
It’s how we get key roles filled by do-nothing seatwarmers like Pete Buttigieg, who has the same sweeping powers that Lina Khan is wielding so deftly at the FTC, but who lacks either the will or the skill to wield those same powers at the Department of Transport:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/11/dinah-wont-you-blow/#ecp
By refusing to stand for anything except a fair division of powers among different Democratic Party blocs, the Biden admin ends up undercutting itself. Take right to repair, a centerpiece of the administration’s agenda, subject of a historic executive order and FTC regulation:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff
Right to Repair fights have been carried out at the state level for years, with the biggest victory coming in Massachusetts, where an automotive R2R ballot initiative won overwhelming support in 2020:
https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/13/said-no-one-ever/#r2r
But despite the massive support for automotive right to repair in the Bay State, Big Car has managed to delay the implementation of the new law for years, tying up the state in expensive, time-consuming litigation:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/26/nixing-the-fix/#r2r
But eventually, even the most expensive delaying tactic fails. Car manufacturers were set to come under the state right to repair rule this month, but they got a last minute reprieve, from Biden’s own National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, who sent urgent letters to every major car manufacturer, telling them to ignore the Massachusetts repair law:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7bbkv/biden-administration-tells-car-companies-to-ignore-right-to-repair-law-people-overwhelmingly-voted-for
The NHTSA repeats the car lobby’s own scare stories about “cybersecurity” that they blitzed to Massachusetts voters in the runup to the ballot initiative:
https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rolling-surveillance-platforms
The idea that cybersecurity is best maintained by letting powerful corporations gouge you on service and parts is belied by independent experts, like SecuRepairs, who do important work countering the FUD thrown off by the industry (and parroted by Biden’s NHTSA):
https://securepairs.org/
Independent security experts are clear that letting owners of high-tech devices decide who fixes them, what software they run, etc, makes us safer:
https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2022/01/letter-to-the-us-senate-judiciary-committee-on-app-stores.html
But here we are: the Biden admin is sabotaging the Biden admin, because the Biden admin isn’t an administration, it’s a system for ensuring proportional representation of different parts of the Democratic Party coalition.
This isn’t just bad for policy, it’s bad politics, too. It presumes that if some Democratic voters want pizza, and others want hamburgers, that you can please everyone by serving up pizzaburgers. No one wants a pizzaburger:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/23/narrative-warfare/#giridharadas
The failure to deliver a coherent, muscular vision for a climate-ready, anti-Gilded Age America has left the Democrats vulnerable. Because while the radical proposals of the GOP fringe may not enjoy much support, there are large majorities of Americans who have lost faith in the status quo and are totally uninterested in the Pizzaburger Party.
Nowhere is this better explained than in Naomi Klein’s superb long-form article on RFK Jr’s presidential bid in The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/14/ignoring-robert-f-kennedy-jr-not-an-option
Don’t get me wrong, RFK Jr is a Very Bad Politician, for all the reasons that Klein lays out. He’s an anti-vaxxer, a conspiracist, and his support for ending American military aggression, defending human rights, and addressing the climate emergency is laughably thin.
But as Klein points out, RFK Jr is not peddling pizzaburgers. He is tapping into a legitimate rage:
a great many voters are hurting and rightfully angry: about powerful corporations controlling their democracy and profiting off disease and poverty. About endless wars draining national coffers and maiming their kids. About stagnating wages and soaring costs. This is the world — inflamed on every level — that the two-party duopoly has knowingly created.
RFK Jr is campaigning against “the corrupt merger between state and corporate power,” against drug monopolies setting our national health agenda, and polluters capturing environmental regulators.
As Klein says, despite RFK Jr’s willing to say the unsayable, and tap into the yearning among the majority of American voters for something different, he’s not running a campaign rooted in finally telling the American public “the truth.” Rather, “public discourse filled with unsayable and unspeakable subjects is fertile territory for all manner of hucksters positioning themselves as uniquely courageous truth tellers.”
We’ve been here before. Remember Trump campaigning against a “rigged system” and promising to “make America great again?” Remember Clinton’s rejoinder that “America was already great?” It’s hard to imagine a worse response to legitimate outrage — over corporate capture, declining wages and living conditions; and spiraling health, education and shelter costs.
Sure, it was obvious that Trump was a beneficiary of the rigged system, and that he would rig it further, but at least he admitted it was rigged, not “already great.”
The Democratic Party is not in thrall to labor unions, or racial equality activists, or people who care about gender justice or the climate emergency. Unlike the GOP, the Dem establishment has figured out how to keep a grip on power within their own party — at the expense of exercising power in America, even when they hold office.
But unlike culture war nonsense, shared prosperity, fairness, care, and sound environmental policies are very popular in America. Some people have been poisoned against politics altogether and sunk into nihilism, while others have been duped into thinking that America can’t afford to look after its people.
In this regard, winning the American electorate is a macrocosm for the way labor activists win union majorities in the workplaces they organize. In her memoir A Collective Bargain, Jane McAlevey describes how union organizers contend with everything that progressive politicians must overcome. A union drive takes place in the teeth of unfair laws, on a tilted playing field that allows bosses to gerrymander some workers’ votes and suppress others’ altogether. These bosses have far more resources than the workers, and they spend millions on disinformation campaigns, forcing workers to attend long propaganda sessions on pain of dismissal.
https://doctorow.medium.com/a-collective-bargain-a48925f944fe
But despite all this, labor organizers win union elections and strike votes, and they do so with stupendous majorities — 95% or higher. This is how the most important labor victories of our day were won: the 2019 LA teachers’ strike won everything. Not just higher wages, but consellors in schools, mandatory greenspace for every school in LA, an end to ICE shakedowns of immigrant parents at the school-gate, and immigration law help for students and their families. What’s more, the teachers used their unity, their connection to the community, and their numbers to get out the vote in the next election, winning the marginal seats that delivered 2020’s Democratic Congressional majority.
As I wrote in my review of MacAlevey’s book:
For McAlevey, saving America is just a scaled up version of the union organizer’s day-job. First, we fix the corrupt union, firing its sellout leaders and replacing them with fighters. Then, we organize supermajorities, person-to-person, in a methodical, organized fashion. Then we win votes, using those supermajorities to overpower the dirty tricks that rig the elections against us. Then we stay activated, because winning the vote is just the start of the fight.
It’s a far cry from the Democratic Party consultant’s “data-driven” microtargeting strategy based on eking out tiny, fragile majorities with Facebook ads. That’s a strategy that fails in the face of even a small and disorganized voter-suppression campaign — it it’s doomed in today’s all-out assault on fair elections.
What’s more, the consultants’ microtargeting strategy treats people as if the only thing they have to contribute is casting a ballot every couple years. A sleeping electorate will never win the fights that matter — the fight to save our planet, and to abolish billionaires.
If only the Democratic Party was as scared of its base as the Republicans are of their own.
If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/16/that-boy-aint-right/#dinos-rinos-and-dunnos
[Image ID: The title page of Richard Hofstadter's 'Paranoid Style in American Politics' from the November, 1964 issue of Harper's Magazine. A John Birch Society pin reading 'This is REPUBLIC not a DEMOCRACY: let's keep it that way' sits atop the page, obscuring the introductory paragraph.]
#pluralistic#tgop#politics#centrism#centrism kills#qgop#democrats in disarray#trumpism#conservatives#robert f kennedy#Massachusetts#climate emergency#naomi klein#oliver willis#right to repair#pizzaburgers
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With the hyper-restrictive Republican abortion ban going into effect in May in Florida, maybe some Floridians will seek reproductive healthcare in neighboring Cuba.
The washed-up white boot and the floating DeSantis for President sign were nice touches. Prolific cartoonist Clay Jones is known for adding such Easter eggs to his cartoon art.
#florida#abortion#reproductive freedom#a woman's right to choose#republicans#ron desantis#6-week abortion ban#cuba#clay jones#election 2024#vote blue no matter who
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I’m thinking today about Savita Halappanavar, an Indian dentist living in Ireland, who in 2012 suffered a partial miscarriage of her first pregnancy. Doctors refused to perform an abortion to expel the foetus as it still had a detectable heartbeat. She developed sepsis and died. She was 31.
About Agnieszka T, a Polish woman who was pregnant with twins. She miscarried one foetus but was refused an abortive procedure. 6 days later her second foetus died. She had to wait 2 further days to be given a termination. She died 3 weeks later of septic shock. She had a husband and 3 other children. She was 37.
About Izabela, a Polish woman whose foetus was found to have several abnormalities, but who was determined to carry to term. When her waters broke in the 22nd week of pregnancy she was told she had to wait until her foetus had no heartbeat before they could induce her or perform a c-section. She died leaving behind a husband and nine year old daughter. She was 30.
About Andrea Prudente, an American woman on a ‘babymoon’ in Malta where she suffered an incomplete miscarriage. Due to Malta’s complete ban on abortion, she was denied an abortion that would save her life. She asked her husband to punch her in the stomach as hard as he could to either induce labour or stop the foetal heartbeat. She was medically evacuated to Spain where they safely performed the procedure needed to end her pregnancy and save her life. This happened on Thursday.
Restrictive abortion bans harm anybody who can get pregnant. They harm planned pregnancies, as much as unplanned ones. They harm residents and non residents. If you’re reading what’s happening in America and thinking ‘Well at least it’s not my country’, sorry to say there’s every chance you could still end up affected one day. Abortion is basic healthcare, and basic healthcare is a basic human right. All these women were denied theirs, and these are just the tip of the iceberg. The last 3 all happened within the last year. Rather than these women being a sign of the past, instead they’re now very much a sign of what’s to come in America and that’s terrifying.
#pro choice#roe v wade#abortion is a basic human right#abortion is healthcare#tw abortion#abortions#seriously it's scary
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BREAKING NEWS: "Gov. Ron DeSantis quietly signed legislation Thursday that would ban most abortions after six weeks in Florida, a move that will weigh on his likely 2024 presidential bid.
DeSantis said as far back as last month that he would sign the measure shepherded through the GOP-dominated Legislature, even as most public polling indicates a ban on abortions at six weeks of pregnancy is unpopular in both political parties.
The Florida law bans abortions at six weeks but creates new exemptions for rape and incest up to 15 weeks of pregnancy. It does not change existing exemptions for life and the health of the mother up to 15 weeks.
DeSantis signed the measure just hours after the Legislature passed it Thursday afternoon. But he didn’t announce publicly that he did so until after 11 p.m."
Read the full piece here: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/ron-desantis-signs-6-week-abortion-ban-law-florida-rcna78989
#StopForcedChildbirth
U.S. readers, register to vote here
#feminism#feminist#stop forced childbirth#abortion#abortion rights#desantis#ron desantis#florida#pro choice#prochoice#pro-choice#reproductive rights#reproductive freedom#u.s.#politics#news
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What's Going On With Roe v Wade (5/3/2022 - 2:45am EDT)
On the night of 5/2/2022, Politico released a leaked draft abortion opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, a conservative justice on the Supreme Court, that would overturn Roe v. Wade--this was a majority opinion, meaning that, in a preliminary vote, at least 5 justices had voted for it.
What this means:
A majority of the Supreme Court (at least 5 of the 9 members) are currently voting on the side of overturning Roe v. Wade. Given that the conservatives have a super-majority (6 members) on the court, this is not a huge surprise. Justice Stephen Breyer is the one who will be voting on this, not Ketanji Jackson Brown. This will make no difference in the vote--they are both liberal votes.
If the result of this vote holds, Roe will be overturned. The New York Times covers what the end of Roe would mean (likely behind a paywall, you can likely get around that by using Incognito mode).
Someone leaked this opinion. That is very small compared to the massive impact of Roe potentially being overturned, but in the history of the Court it is a huge deal. Whoever did this is incredibly brave and will most likely lose their job and their career from this.
What this doesn't mean:
That the Supreme Court has released a decision. June is the last month of the Supreme Court's term, and it's when they release a lot of their decisions, especially the major ones. This was a leaked draft opinion.
That Roe has been overturned. Again, no decision has been released, and the vote is not final.
That this means that abortion will become illegal nationwide. You can look at the NYT explanation above, but in summary, there are 13 states with "trigger laws" which will make abortion illegal if/when Roe is overturned, and there is an estimate of somewhere between 24 and 26 states that will ban abortion if Roe is overturned.
That the majority of the country wants this. Based on basically every recent poll I can find, the majority of the country opposes overturning Roe, including many Republicans.
What's happening now:
The Women's March is calling for nationwide protests on 5/3/2022 at 5pm local time. (not sure if there's alt text on the image, but the tweet it's replying to links to the details)
As of 1:30am EDT people had gathered outside of the Supreme Court. Barricades have been up in front of the Court since a scientist self-immolated in front of the Court on 4/24/2022 to bring attention to climate change.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Shumer (D-NY) put out a statement condemning the draft opinion.
There will almost certainly be a huge amount of movement on this in the next few days and weeks, including a resources on what you can do to help support reproductive rights in the United States.
Some resources:
New York Times: Live reporting
Women's March: Info on 5/3/2022 protests
Planned Parenthood
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Via The New York Times, the image above is a screenshot of a map which shows abortion bans in the United States, as of 8/23/23.
South Carolina’s new all-male Supreme Court reversed course on abortion on Wednesday, upholding a ban on most such procedures after about six weeks of pregnancy.
The 4-1 ruling departs from the court’s own decision earlier this year to strike down a similar law.
Earlier this year, South Carolina became the only state in the country with an entirely male state Supreme Court; after the only woman on the court was forced into retirement due to her age, our state legislature and governor went into a special overtime session in order to pass a new anti-abortion law, knowing that any further legal challenges would be unsuccessful.
As of today that ban is in effect; people waiting to have abortion procedures this morning were sent home from clinics after the ruling came out.
This is a loss not only for the millions of people living in this state who will now be denied healthcare and their own bodily autonomy, but also for thousands of others who might not be able to travel here from out of state to access care anymore.
We can also be certain that they aren't done; attempts at a total ban will come next, and after that we can be sure that gender affirming care bans and further legal oppression of trans youth will take center stage once again. (I say further, because the sports ban for trans youth is already law, and most people have already forgotten about it.)
The cruelty is the point.
#abortion#reproductive justice#pro choice#abortion rights#news#christian fascism#christofascism#reproductive rights#bodily autonomy#medical freedom
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Florida Republicans must have felt pretty smug when the state supreme court allowed their 6-week ban on abortion to go into effect. But the other rulings handed down at the same time have set Florida on a direct path to flipping blue in November. That can only mean one thing: Republicans are going to burn democracy to the ground to stop it.
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Worried by Florida’s history standards? Check out its new dictionary!
As always, Alexandra Petri is spot on in satirizing the right-wing censorship and educational nonsense happening in Florida. This is a gift 🎁 link, so you can read the entire column, even if you don't subscribe to The Washington Post.
Below are some excerpts 😂:
Well, it’s a week with a Thursday in it, and Florida is, once again, revising its educational standards in alarming ways. Not content with removing books from shelves, or demanding that the College Board water down its AP African American studies curriculum, the state’s newest history standards include lessons suggesting that enslaved people “developed skills” for “personal benefit.” This trend appears likely to continue. What follows is a preview of the latest edition of the dictionary to be approved in Florida.
Aah: (exclamation) Normal thing to say when you enter the water at the beach, which is over 100 degrees.
Abolitionists: (noun) Some people in the 19th century who were inexplicably upset about a wonderful free surprise job training program. Today they want to end prisons for equally unclear reasons.
Abortion: (noun) Something that male state legislators (the foremost experts on this subject) believe no one ever wants under any circumstances, probably; decision that people beg the state to make for them and about which doctors beg for as little involvement as possible.
American history: (noun) A branch of learning that concerns a ceaseless parade of triumphs and contains nothing to feel bad about.
Barbie: (noun) Feminist demon enemy of the state.
Biden, Joe: (figure) Illegitimate president.
Black history: (entry not found)
Blacksmith: (noun) A great job and one that enslaved people might have had. Example sentence from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R): “They’re probably going to show that some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life.”
Book ban: (noun) Effective way of making sure people never have certain sorts of ideas.
Censorship: (noun) When other people get mad about something you’ve said. Not to be confused with when you remove books from libraries or the state tells colleges what can and can’t be said in classrooms (both fine).
Child: (noun) Useful laborer with tiny hands; alternatively, someone whose reading cannot be censored enough.
[...]
[See more select "definitions" below the cut]
Classified: (adjective) The government’s way of saying a paper is especially interesting and you ought to have it in your house.
Climate change: (noun) Conspiracy by scientists to change all the thermometers, fill the air with smoke and then blame us.
[...]
Constitution: (noun) A document that can be interpreted only by Trump-appointed and/or Federalist Society judges. If the Constitution appears to prohibit something that you want to do, take the judge on a boat and try again.
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DeSantis, Ron: (figure) Governor who represents the ideal human being. Pronunciation varies.
Disney: (noun) A corporation, but not the good kind.
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Election: (noun) Binding if Republicans win; otherwise, needs help from election officials who will figure out where the fraud was that prevented the election from reflecting the will of the people (that Republicans win).
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Emancipation Proclamation: (noun) Classic example of government overreach.
Firearm: (noun) Wonderful, beautiful object that every person ought to have six of, except Hunter Biden.
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FOX: News.
Free speech: (noun) When you shut up and I talk.
Gun violence: (noun) Simple, unalterable fact of life, like death but unlike taxes.
[...]
Jan. 6: (noun) A day when some beautiful, beloved people took a nice, uneventful tour of the U.S. Capitol.
King Jr., Martin Luther: (figure) A man who, as far as we can discern, uttered only one famous quotation ever and it was about how actually anytime you tried to suggest that people were being treated differently based on skin color you were the real racist. Sample sentence: “Dr. King would be enraged at the existence of Black History Month.”
Liberty: (noun) My freedom to choose what you can read (see Moms for Liberty).
Moms for Liberty: (noun) Censors, but the good kind.
[...]
Pregnant (adjective): The state of being a vessel containing a Future Citizen; do not say “pregnant person”; no one who is a real person can get pregnant.
Queer: (entry not found)
Refugee: (noun) Someone who should have stayed put and waited for help to come.
Slavery: (noun) We didn’t invent it, or it wasn’t that bad, or it was a free job training program.
Supreme Court: (noun) Wonderful group of mostly men without whom no journey by private plane or yacht is complete.
Trans: (entry not found)
United States: (noun) Perfect place, no notes.
[emphasis added to defined words]
#florida#ron desantis#black history#educational standards#alexandra petri#satire#the washington post#gift link
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Technically this is because I saw it in fiction I was reading, but considering the devolving state of American reproductive rights…
A pregnancy is measured in weeks from your last period, not weeks since The Sex™ So in general if you have a 28 day cycle, you ovulate around day 14, have had sex before or around that date, and implantation happens about 9ish days after conception. Some at home pregnancy tests, sometimes, if you’re lucky and your hormones are high, can give a positive reading 3 days after implantation. That would be day 26 of your cycle.
So you’re thinking to yourself, ok, at that point, you’re a few days, maybe a week pregnant, right? Wrong.
If you do all that, are trying to get pregnant and are testing obsessively, and find out earliest possible day, you would be 3w 5d pregnant. Most people don’t test until a missed period plus a couple days. Let’s call it five days late. That person tests, and finds out when they are almost 5 weeks pregnant.
Now lets be realistic. Lots of people don’t have textbook 28 day cycles.
Let’s say you have an average of a 35 day cycle but it’s unpredictable. You’ve got a healthy sex life. You miss your period, wait five days bc you know your cycle is wacky, go get a test on day six after work, and test first thing in the morning (when they tell you to test). You would be 6 weeks pregnant and would already be ineligible for an abortion in some states. You probably have no symptoms or indication other than a late period. Early pregnancy symptoms look a hell of a lot like PMS. It isn’t a movie; you don’t get a clear indicator.
Pregnancy math isn’t measured from implantation or conception. It’s called gestational age, and it’s the infamous Forty Weeks in your head about pregnancy. It’s also why sometimes you go to 42 weeks or later, because the baby isn’t done, because ovulation wasn’t in week 2, it was in week 4. Yes, doctors sometimes adjust dates and estimates after you start ultrasounds. But this weird math is what lots of the strict abortion bans are based on.
In your head, unless you know this already, hearing someone talk about a six week abortion ban sounds like someone had six weeks after sex to notice the pregnancy and make a decision. They didn’t. They might have had a couple days. They may have not even known they were late when they already crossed the line.
If you want to argue about this issue, write about this, protest, scream, pray, whatever; start by knowing what it actually means, and go from there.
(Sorry it’s in red, I’m on mobile)
#us politics#abortion#this is in red because I’m on mobile#if you’re writing fic#please research pregnancy before writing it#just a little#I’m begging you#if you don’t believe me about this#go research#if you were poorly educated in us sex Ed#my condolences#it’s worse than you can imagine
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