#death from legal abortion

[killed-by-choice]

FACT: Banning abortion dramatically reduces the rate of abortion— and the number of women dying from abortion

Restrictive state-level abortion policies are associated with not having an abortion at all. Calculated to account for the rate of criminal/illegal abortions.

“Women who lived in a state where abortion access was low were more likely than women living in a state with greater access to use highly effective contraceptives rather than no method” Not only are abortion rates lower where abortions are illegal, but unwanted pregnancy rates too. People are more careful. (From the Guttmacher Institute, former statistics arm of Planned Parenthood.) https://www.guttmacher.org/journals/psrh/2015/05/state-abortion-context-and-us-womens-contraceptive-choices-1995-2010

29% of Medicaid eligible pregnant women who would have an abortion with Medicaid coverage, instead give birth. Calculated to account for the rate of criminal/illegal abortions. https://bmcwomenshealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12905-019-0775-5

Analysis of statewide data from the three States indicated that following restrictions on State funding of abortions, the proportion of reported pregnancies resulting in births, rather than in abortions, increased in all three States. Calculated to account for the rate of criminal/illegal abortions. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1580169/pdf/pubhealthrep00193-0013.pdf

Approximately one-fourth of women who would have Medicaid-funded abortions instead give birth when this funding is unavailable … Studies have found little evidence that lack of Medicaid funding has resulted in illegal abortions. Calculated to account for the rate of criminal/illegal abortions.

We find that a 100-mile increase in distance to the nearest clinic is associated with 30.7 percent fewer abortions and 3.2 percent more births. Calculated to account for the rate of criminal/illegal abortions.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pam.22263

rate of abortion is found to be lower in states where access to providers is reduced and state policies are restrictive. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9099567/

A wait time as short as 72 hours is enough to start decreasing abortion rates. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1049386716300603

Abortion decreased after being restricted: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4050978/

Michigan banned Medicaid from paying for abortion. Abortion rates dropped. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8135922/

The farther away a woman is from an abortion facility, the less likely she is to get one: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2134397?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Some restrictions were enacted in Eastern Europe in the 80s and 90s. The rates of abortion AND pregnancy rates both decreased.

Fetal development information and required waiting periods lead to less abortion:

A study in Louisiana and Maryland found that laws against abortion were effective at stopping abortions

Countries with abortion bans also have dramatically lower maternal mortality compared to other countries in the region with dangerously permissive abortion laws.

“Contrary to the notion proposing a negative impact of restrictive abortion laws on maternal health, the abortion mortality ratio did not increase after the abortion ban in Chile. Rather, it decreased over 96 percent.”

Mexican states that ban and restrict abortion have better MMR than permissive states: “Over the 10-year period, states with less permissive abortion legislation exhibited lower Maternal Mortality Rates than more permissive states.”

Poland bans all abortion except LotM and has the world’s lowest MMR (2/100000). Malta bans almost all abortions and has MMR of 6/100000

It also works in reverse. Multiple countries have seen an increase in MMR after legalizing abortion.

Guyana legalized abortion and achieved the worst MMR on the continent. (Compare that to Chile, which has constitutional protections for the unborn and an MMR that dropped by over 96% AFTER abortion was banned.)

Ethiopia legalized abortion and it made MMR worse: “Although abortion was not legalised on demand, it was legalised on broad socio-economic grounds: the Center for Reproductive Rights place it in the same category as the UK and Finland which, while not strictly allowing abortion on demand, do allow something close to that in practice.” … “Over the period of legalisation, the proportion of women with septic shock more than doubled, with the same result for organ failure. The proportion admitted to intensive care nearly tripled. Between 2008 and 2014, the percentage of women receiving post-abortion care who have severe complications increased by over 50%, from 7% to 11%. During this time, the proportion of women presenting with organ failure quadrupled, the proportion with peritonitis quintupled, and the proportion with shock nearly doubled.”

Ireland’s once-stellar MMR also increased after legalizing abortion. (Compare to Poland and Malta with almost total bans and to the UK where abortion is essentially legal in demand up to the second trimester.)

The pattern repeats in Asia. Nepal, where there is no restriction on abortion, has one of the world’s highest maternal mortality rates. (The lowest in the region is Sri Lanka, with a rate fourteen times lower than Nepal and very good restrictions on abortion.)

In addition, less people are being lured into abortion under the false impression that it’s “safe and legal”. If any of them die of illegal abortion, it’s because they knowingly committed a crime. There will no longer be cases like 17-year-old Roselle Owens, Sarah Dunn, Tonya Reaves and Cree Erwin-Sheppard (to name a few) who were killed by abortion because they were lied to about the risks.

#pro life #pro choice #abortion #tw abortion #tw murder #tw death #tw ab*rtion #abortion debate #maternal mortality #death from legal abortion #abortion is not healthcare #abortion is not a right #abortion kills women #abortion bans #abortion bans save lives #abortion bans save women #human rights #maternal health

[liberaljane]

Women's Not So Distant History

This #WomensHistoryMonth, let's not forget how many of our rights were only won in recent decades, and weren’t acquired by asking nicely and waiting. We need to fight for our rights. Here's are a few examples:

📍 Before 1974's Fair Credit Opportunity Act made it illegal for financial institutions to discriminate against applicants' gender, banks could refuse women a credit card. Women won the right to open a bank account in the 1960s, but many banks still refused without a husband’s signature. This allowed men to continue to have control over women’s bank accounts. Unmarried women were often refused service by financial institutions entirely.

📍 Before 1977, sexual harassment was not considered a legal offense. That changed when a woman brought her boss to court after she refused his sexual advances and was fired. The court stated that her termination violated the 1974 Civil Rights Act, which made employment discrimination illegal.⚖️

📍 In 1969, California became the first state to pass legislation to allow no-fault divorce. Before then, divorce could only be obtained if a woman could prove that her husband had committed serious faults such as adultery. 💍By 1977, nine states had adopted no-fault divorce laws, and by late 1983, every state had but two. The last, New York, adopted a law in 2010.

📍In 1967, Kathrine Switzer, entered the Boston Marathon under the name "K.V. Switzer." At the time, the Amateur Athletics Union didn't allow women. Once discovered, staff tried to remove Switzer from the race, but she finished. AAU did not formally accept women until fall 1971.

📍 In 1972, Lillian Garland, a receptionist at a California bank, went on unpaid leave to have a baby and when she returned, her position was filled. Her lawsuit led to 1978's Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which found that discriminating against pregnant people is unlawful

📍 It wasn’t until 2016 that gay marriage was legal in all 50 states. Previously, laws varied by state, and while many states allowed for civil unions for same-sex couples, it created a separate but equal standard. In 2008, California was the first state to achieve marriage equality, only to reverse that right following a ballot initiative later that year. 

📍In 2018, Utah and Idaho were the last two states that lacked clear legislation protecting chest or breast feeding parents from obscenity laws. At the time, an Idaho congressman complained women would, "whip it out and do it anywhere,"

📍 In 1973, the Supreme Court affirmed the right to safe legal abortion in Roe v. Wade. At the time of the decision, nearly all states outlawed abortion with few exceptions. In 1965, illegal abortions made up one-sixth of all pregnancy- and childbirth-related deaths. Unfortunately after years of abortion restrictions and bans, the Supreme Court overturned Roe in 2022. Since then, 14 states have fully banned care, and another 7 severely restrict it – leaving most of the south and midwest without access. 

📍 Before 1973, women were not able to serve on a jury in all 50 states. However, this varied by state: Utah was the first state to allow women to serve jury duty in 1898. Though, by 1927, only 19 states allowed women to serve jury duty. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 gave women the right to serve on federal juries, though it wasn't until 1973 that all 50 states passed similar legislation

📍 Before 1988, women were unable to get a business loan on their own. The Women's Business Ownership Act of 1988 allowed women to get loans without a male co-signer and removed other barriers to women in business. The number of women-owned businesses increased by 31 times in the last four decades. 

Free download

📍 Before 1965, married women had no right to birth control. In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Supreme Court ruled that banning the use of contraceptives violated the right to marital privacy.

📍 Before 1967, interracial couples didn’t have the right to marry. In Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court found that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional. In 2000, Alabama was the last State to remove its anti-miscegenation laws from the books.

📍 Before 1972, unmarried women didn’t have the right to birth control. While married couples gained the right in 1967, it wasn’t until Eisenstadt v. Baird seven years later, that the Supreme Court affirmed the right to contraception for unmarried people.

📍 In 1974, the last “Ugly Laws” were repealed in Chicago. “Ugly Laws” allowed the police to arrest and jail people with visible disabilities for being seen in public. People charged with ugly laws were either charged a fine or held in jail. ‘Ugly Laws’ were a part of the late 19th century Victorian Era poor laws. 

📍 In 1976, Hawaii was the last state to lift requirements that a woman take her husband’s last name.  If a woman didn’t take her husband’s last name, employers could refuse to issue her payroll and she could be barred from voting. 

📍 It wasn’t until 1993 that marital assault became a crime in all 50 states. Historically, intercourse within marriage was regarded as a “right” of spouses. Before 1974, in all fifty U.S. states, men had legal immunity for assaults their wives. Oklahoma and North Carolina were the last to change the law in 1993.

📍  In 1990, the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) – most comprehensive disability rights legislation in U.S. history – was passed. The ADA protected disabled people from employment discrimination. Previously, an employer could refuse to hire someone just because of their disability.

📍 Before 1993, women weren’t allowed to wear pants on the Senate floor. That changed when Sen. Moseley Braun (D-IL), & Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) wore trousers - shocking the male-dominated Senate. Their fashion statement ultimately led to the dress code being clarified to allow women to wear pants. 

📍 Emergency contraception (Plan B) wasn't approved by the FDA until 1998. While many can get emergency contraception at their local drugstore, back then it required a prescription. In 2013, the FDA removed age limits & allowed retailers to stock it directly on the shelf (although many don’t).

📍  In Lawrence v. Texas (2003), the Supreme Court ruled that anti-cohabitation laws were unconstitutional. Sometimes referred to as the ‘'Living in Sin' statute, anti-cohabitation laws criminalize living with a partner if the couple is unmarried. Today, Mississippi still has laws on its books against cohabitation. 

#art #feminism #women's history #women's history month #iwd2024 #international women's day #herstory #educational #graphics #history #70s #80s #rights #women's rights #human rights

[counterpunches]

source

Caption:

[[@else: I suppose it's time to tell my abortion story. Of the abortion that didn't happen, that led to me.

A lot of anti-abortion people put words & thoughts into the mouths of the unborn.

Well, I'm one that was recommended to stay unborn, who got born, and here's what I say.

My mother found our very early in her pregnancy that there was an extremely high risk to her if she continued.

Terminating the pregnancy was floated by one of the doctors. It would have been legal due to the risk to her, but heavily stigmatized.

Her family was deeply Catholic. She was deeply Catholic.

She did not terminate. The risk became a reality.

So I'm here, and she's not.

I'm glad to be here.

It is hard to put into words the gratitude you feel to a mother who sacrificed herself entirely for you, and I'm not going to try here.

Because I'm also very angry.

Without in any way taking away from the courage and selflessness with which she bore her situation and which she showed in all aspects of her life

I don't believe she ever really felt like she had a true choice.

The stigma, the religious dogma, the judgement - everything she'd ever known - told her she could not save her own life.

Her parents would have, however sadly, believed she'd go to hell. Her family and friends and community would have judged her.

Everyone she'd ever loved believed it was wrong. And so she believed it was wrong.

Needlessly.

I don't know what choice she would have made if it had been a true choice.

Maybe she would have chosen me anyway. Maybe she would have chosen to stay for her two already-existing children and for all those who loved her so deeply.

But she should have had a real, true choice.

Would I trade being here for that?

In a heartbeat. Without hesitation.

My siblings could have grown up with their mother.

My grandparents could have seen their beloved daughter live out her beautiful life, instead of mourning her every day until their deaths.

Her brothers and sisters would not still thirty years later feel the pain of losing the sistre they loved so much.

She could have continued to bring the light to the world that she had always brought, that I have heard so much about.

My father perhaps would not have descended into the grief & guilt that destroyed him, our relationship with him, the innocence of our childhoods.

Now, I think about how my young nieces & nephews will grow up without her, without the kind of grandmother I had. That pains me too.

I grew up in the devastation of her death.

I've watched the consequences of it play out for thirty years.

I can see what might have been differently if she'd had a true choice and it snatches my breath away, to see the suffering that didn't have to be for the ones I love most.

I know that it is not my family, but it is also profoundly difficult to know that it is because of me.

Or to be more exact, because the world did not allow my mother her right to a true choice, and my being here is perhaps a result of that.

It's not a burden I'd wish on anyone

I wish that I could have told her. It's okay. Stay. Live. Be happy.

I wish I could know that she knew that that was more than ok.

Don't I want to be here? Don't I want to be alive, aren't I glad to live??

Now that I'm here, sure. But had I never been, what would I have lost? Nothing.

You can't miss what you never had. Can't lose anything when you never existed.

There's no pain or loss in not existing.

I didn't exist then, to want anything. I didn't exist to hope or wish or fear anything.

I didn't exist back then. Not me. There was a possibility. An idea, a hope maybe. Some cells, a process in her body. Not me, any more than a sperm was me or an egg was me.

*I" didn't become until much later. Til I was born.

My mother wouldn't have taken anything from me or cause me any pain by living for herself, because I didn't exist to lose anything.

There was so much pain, so much loss in losing her. Loss that will ripple down generations.

So I will say to my dying breath, as the person who only lives because she didn't abort, that whatever she thought or chose or did not chose, she should have had a real choice to abort.

That she should have felt that aborting me was valid and good a choice as not.

Everyone should feel that, and have real access to enact that choice without obstruction or shame or question.

Whether it is their actual life at risk, or not. A forced pregnancy can be the death of many things, not just the end of ther person's life.

Having me took away from the world everything that my mother could have given it.

Forcing someone to have a child against their will can take away what that person could be and bring if they had their choice, whether they live through the pregnancy or not.

Most of all it takes away their right - their inalienable right - to choose how they live their life in their own body.

A non-person, a hypothetical future event, the birth of someone who doesn't exist yet, doesn't have that right.

Other people, who claim to speak for the unborn do not have that right.

We all lose so much by it. It can cause such pain and suffering, for child-bearers, for children, for everyone.

Do not pretend to speak for the unborn.

Do not pretend to speak for the children born against their mother's will.

Do not pretend that you care for them while you hide misogyny behind dogma.

My mother deserved her right to a real choice.

Everyone does. Unconditionally.

As the child who could have been aborted, I tell you - to oppose that right, let alone work to criminalize it, is unforgivable.

I'd like to emphasize because I didn't say it loud enough in the original thread:

There doesn't need to be a tragic story or a threat to life to make abortion ok.

It can be simply because you don't want to have a child. That's all. You still have the right to a choice.

I told my sad story because:

a) it is important to me to counter the rhetoric of anti-choice folks, that claims that if the unborn could speak they would be anti-choice

b) forced pregnancies can really f*ck up lives in many ways and that needs to be recognized.

But:

There shouldn't have to be a tale of woe to justify bodily autonomy.

It's a right. An absolute right. It should be protected by law.

That's it. That's all.

Last thingL I want this point to be heard, but I don't particularly want to deal with blowing up on twitter.

I will probably lock my account down at some point, but I would like this still to be shared. Maybe use an unroll app and share from there if you would like to.]]

#abortion #tw abortion #pro-choice #pro choice

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The "religious liberty" angle for overturning the overturning of Dobbs

Frank Wilhoit’s definition of “conservativism” remains a classic:

There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288

Conservativism is, in other words, the opposite of the rule of law, which is the idea that the law applies equally to all. Many of America’s most predictably weird moments live in the tension between the rule of law and the conservative’s demand to be protected — but not bound — by the law.

Think of the Republican women of Florida whose full-throated support for the perfomatively cruel and bigoted policies of Ron Desantis turned to howls of outrage when the governor signed a law “overhauling alimony” (for “overhauling,” read “eliminating”):

https://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/this-is-a-death-sentence-for-me-florida-republican-women-say-they-will-switch-parties-after-desantis-approves-alimony-law-34563230

This is real leopards-eating-people’s-faces-party stuff, and it’s the only source of mirth in an otherwise grim situation.

But out of the culture-war bullshit backfires, none is so sweet and delicious as the religious liberty self-own. You see, under the rule of law, if some special consideration is owed to a group due to religious liberty, that means all religions. Of course, Wilhoit-drunk conservatives imagine that “religious liberty” is a synonym for Christian liberty, and that other groups will never demand the same carve outs.

Remember when Louisiana decided spend tax dollars to fund “religious” schools under a charter school program, only to discover — to their Islamaphobic horror — that this would allow Muslim schools to get public subsidies, too?

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/louisiana_n_1593995

(They could have tried the Quebec gambit, where hijabs and yarmulkes are classed as “religious” and therefore banned for public servants and publicly owned premises, while crosses are treated as “cultural” and therefore exempted — that’s some primo Wilhoitism right there)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-francois-legault-crucifix-religious-symbols-1.4858757

The Satanic Temple has perfected the art of hoisting religious liberty on its own petard. Are you a state lawmaker hoping to put a giant Ten Commandments on the statehouse lawn? Go ahead, have some religious liberty — just don’t be surprised when the Satanic Temple shows up to put a giant statue of Baphomet next to it:

https://www.npr.org/2018/08/17/639726472/satanic-temple-protests-ten-commandments-monument-with-goat-headed-statue

Wanna put a Christmas tree in the state capitol building? Sure, but there’s gonna be a Satanic winter festival display right next to it:

https://katv.com/news/offbeat/satanic-temple-display-installed-at-illinois-capitol-next-to-nativity-scene-menorah-decorations-snake-serpent-satanic-temple-springfield-christmas-tree

And now we come to Dobbs, and the cowardly, illegitimate Supreme Court’s cowardly, illegitimate overturning of Roe v Wade, a move that was immediately followed by “red” states implementing total, or near-total bans on abortion:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/15/paid-medical-disinformation/#crisis-pregnancy-centers

These same states are hotbeds of “religious liberty” nonsense. In about a dozen of these states, Jews, Christians, and Satanists are filing “religious liberty” challenges to the abortion ban. In Indiana, the Hoosier Jews For Choice have joined with other religious groups in a class action, to argue that the “religious freedom” law that Mike Pence signed as governor protects their right to an abortion:

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/21/legal-strategy-that-could-topple-abortion-bans-00102468

Their case builds on precedents from the covid lockdowns, like decisions that said that if secular exceptions to lockdown rules or vaccine mandates existed, then states had to also allow religious exemptions. That opens the door for religious exemptions to abortion bans — if there’s a secular rule that permits abortion in the instance of incest or rape, then faith-based exceptions must be permitted, too.

Some of the challenges to abortion rules seek to carve out religious exemptions, but others seek to overturn the abortion rules altogether, because the lawmakers who passed them explicitly justified them in the name of fusing Christian “values” with secular law, a First Amendment no-no.

As Rabbi James Bennett told Politico’s Alice Ollstein: “They’re entitled to their interpretation of when life begins, but they’re not entitled to have the exclusive one.”

In Florida, a group of Jewish, Buddhist, Episcopalian, Universalists and United Church clerics are challenging the “aiding and abetting” law because it restricts the things they can say from the pulpit — a classic religious liberty gambit.

Kentucky’s challenge comes from three Jewish women whose faith holds that life begins “with the first breath.” Lead plaintiff Lisa Sobel described how Kentucky’s law bars her from seeking IVF treatment, because she could face criminal charges for “discarding non-viable embryos” created during the process.

Then there’s the Satanic Temple, in court in Texas, Idaho and Indiana. The Satanists say that abortion is a religious ritual, and argue that the state can’t limit their access to it.

These challenges all rest on state religious liberty laws. What will happen when some or all of these reach the Supreme Court? It’s a risky gambit. This is the court that upheld Trump’s Muslim ban and the right of a Christian baker to refuse to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. It’s a court that loves Wilhoit’s “in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

It’s a court that’s so Wilhoit-drunk, it’s willing to grant religious liberty to bigots who worry about imaginary same-sex couples:

https://newrepublic.com/article/173987/mysterious-case-fake-gay-marriage-website-real-straight-man-supreme-court

But in the meantime, the bigots and religious maniacs who want to preserve “religious liberty” while banning abortion are walking a fine line. The Becket Fund, which funded the Hobby Lobby case (establishing that religious maniacs can deny health care to their employees if their imaginary friends object), has filed a brief in one case arguing that the religious convictions of people arguing for a right to abortion aren’t really sincere in their beliefs:

https://becketnewsite.s3.amazonaws.com/20230118184008/Individual-Members-v.-Anonymous-Planitiff-Amicus-Brief.pdf

This is quite a line for Becket to have crossed — religious liberty trufans hate it when courts demand that people seeking religious exemptions prove that their beliefs are sincerely held.

Not only is Becket throwing its opposition to “sincerely held belief” tests under the bus, they’re doing so for nothing. Jewish religious texts clearly state that life begins at the first breath, and that the life of a pregnant person takes precedence over the life of the fetus in their uterus.

The kicker in Ollstein’s great article comes in the last paragraph, delivered by Columbia Law’s Elizabeth Reiner Platt, who runs the Law, Rights, and Religion Project:

The idea of reproductive rights as a religious liberty issue is absolutely not something that came from lawyers. It’s how faith communities themselves have been talking about their approach to reproductive rights for literally decades.

The Clarion Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop (I’m a grad, instructor and board member) is having its fundraiser auction to help defray tuition. I’ve donated a “Tuckerization” — the right to name a character in a future novel:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/clarion-sf-fantasy-writers-workshop-23-campaign/#/

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/11/wilhoitism/#hoosier-jews

[Image ID: Moses parting the Red Sea. On the seabed is revealed a Planned Parenthood clinic.]

Image: Nina Paley (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Moses-Splits-Sea_by_Nina_Paley.jpg

CC0 1.0 https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en

 — 

Kristina D.C. Hoeppner (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/4nitsirk/40406966752/

CC BY-SA 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

#pluralistic #religion #frank wilhoit #petard #gender #religious freedom #1a #abortion bans #dobbs #roe

[transmutationisms]

when you say “positive / negative right”, what do those mean?

thanks for the good posts :)

a negative right is a claim to protection from some sort of interference; a positive right is a claim that the other party has an obligation to act in some way beyond just refraining from causing harm. for example, the right to free speech is generally spoken about as a negative right: it guarantees me the freedom from state intervention into what i can say. a right to health, on the other hand, would be a positive claim that i should be guaranteed access to things like clean air and water, health care, sick leave, &c.

in practice this distinction is actually much messier than i'm making it sound, and most 'negative rights' are basically meaningless without positive interventions, except in the fantasyland of libertarian political discourse. for example, the united states prohibits one human being from enslaving another (a negative right to legal and bodily freedom) but simultaneously engages in, and permits, incarceration with & without forced and un(der)-compensated labour requirements. the state is not actually granting freedom, and slavery has only been outlawed on a very limited and technical basis. another example is the right to abortion, which, prior to the dobbs decision, was legal in the us on the basis of a 'right to privacy' as established in roe v wade—a freedom from specific interventions in one's medical decisions. however, for decades the actual right to abortion was eroded by the us's lack of universal health care and paid time off, and by laws that became progressively more restrictive in terms of when in a pregnancy abortions were allowed, what clinics had to do in order to be allowed to operate, and what requirements patients had to satisfy first (waiting periods, ultrasounds, &c). in practice this meant that fewer and fewer people could actually access abortion, despite having, technically, legal protection from government interference in its provision. even freedom of speech falls apart as a purely negative right, because, as i've said before, most enforcement of speech limitations actually happens via economic mechanisms like the threat of losing your job—meaning, the operative issue here is not usually whether the state can directly censor me but whether i risk starving to death if a corporation disliked what i said. in other words, what makes my speech vulnerable is the fact that i live in a society that does not guarantee me food, shelter, and basic necessities as positive rights.

negative rights appeal to liberals and other reactionaries because they're framed as maximising everybody's freedom: your actions are only constrained if they risk impinging on me. however, in actuality what this means is that a right defended on 'negative' grounds is basically incapable of redressing existing social and political inequities, and instead upholds or even exacerbates the power dynamics already in effect. i am actually not a huge fan of 'rights' as a legal framework period, and i think a well-defended 'positive right' is really moving beyond the construal of 'rights' and into a more materialist and socially contextualist framework, but that's a different post.

[radiofreederry]

Happy birthday, Fidel Castro! (August 13, 1926)

The longtime leader of the revolution in Cuba, Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born in Birán to a well-off family. Castro was radicalized during his legal studies at the University of Havana, coming to embrace anti-imperialism and opposition to US interference in the Caribbean and Latin America. Castro traveled abroad to participate in rebellions against right-wing governments in the Dominican Republic and Colombia, before returning to Cuba and setting his sights on freeing it from right-wing rule and US domination. After an initial abortive rebellion against Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista failed, Castro spent several years in prison along with his comrades, who went on to form the nucleus of the 26th of July Movement. Released on amnesty, Castro went right back to revolutionary activity, spending time in exile. While away from Cuba, he met Che Guevara, who would go on to play a pivotal role in the revolution. On December 2, 1956, Castro landed with around 80 men on the Cuban shore, using a rickety and decrepit old yacht. The revolutionaries were ambushed by Batista's forces shortly thereafter, and their numbers slashed down to only around 20. From these 20 revolutionaries, Castro built up a revolutionary movement which swept Batista from power and liberated Cuba from imperialist control for the first time in history. Declaring himself a Marxist-Leninist, Castro went about radically transforming Cuba on a socialist model, instituting extensive land reform, a highly-effective literacy program, universal healthcare, and other such policies. He led Cuba through the heady early years of the revolution, in which the US constantly plotted to overthrow his government and assassinate him personally, through the Cuban Missile Crisis in which US bullishness came close to unleashing nuclear war, and through the end of the Cold War and the collapse of Cuba's ally the USSR. Castro instituted Cuba's celebrated policy of medical diplomacy, and in the Havana Declaration he expressed Cuba's intentions to support revolutionary movements abroad. Castro continued to lead Cuba until 2008, when he stepped down in favor of his brother Raul, and he died in 2016. Reviled in the United States and the imperial core, Castro remains a beloved and celebrated figure in the Global South, a symbol of anti-imperialism, resistance to US aggression, and hope for a better world.

"A revolution is not a trail of roses…. A revolution is a fight to the death between the future and the past."

#birthdays #fidel castro

[intersectionalpraxis]

"Under a Missouri statute that has recently gained nationwide attention, every petitioner for divorce is required to disclose their pregnancy status. In practice, experts say, those who are pregnant are barred from legally dissolving their marriage. “The application [of the law] is an outright ban,” said Danielle Drake, attorney at Parks & Drake. When Drake learned her then husband was having an affair, her own divorce stalled because she was pregnant. Two other states have similar laws: Texas and Arkansas."

"Missouri is particularly restrictive when it comes to reproductive health and autonomy. It was one of the first to ban abortion after Roe v Wade was overturned in 2022, including in cases of rape and incest. Research shows that abortion restrictions can effectively give cover to reproductive coercion and sexual violence: the National Hotline for Domestic Violence said it saw a 99% increase in calls during the first year after the loss of the constitutional right to abortion."

"Advocates are currently trying to gather enough signatures to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would make abortion legal until fetal viability, or around 24 weeks."

"In Missouri, homicide was the third leading cause of deaths in connection with pregnancy between 2018–2022, the majority (75%) of which occurred among Black women, according to a 2023 report by the Missouri department of health and senior services, which examines maternal mortality data. In every case, the perpetrator was a current or former partner. And in 2022, 23,252 individuals in the state received services after reporting domestic violence, according to the latest reporting from Missouri Coalition Against Domestic & Sexual Violence, which compiles data from direct service providers in the state."

The dystopia we speak of -across many of issues that women and marginalized folks face is HERE already. This is terrifying.

#feminist #feminism #social justice #current events #current news #missouri #missouri law #united states #partner abuse #tw abuse #intersectionality #intersectional feminism #violence against women #intimate partner violence #intimate partner abuse #divorce #relationship #us law #important #information #pregnancy #gender violence #bodily autonomy #womens rights #reproductive freedom #abortion is healthcare

[anamericangirl]

Two quick questions, hopefully you don't get these all the time:

What exceptions, if any, would exist in your ideal abortion ban (incest, rape, life/health of mother, etc.)?

How do miscarriages weight for you, morally? Should criminal charges (child neglect, murder, etc) be considered in any/some/all cases of miscarriage?

Before I knew much about abortion, I supported exceptions to abortion in cases where the mother’s life was at risk and thought she should be treated as necessary, even if that included abortion because of the mother doesn’t live, neither will the baby.

Now, however, since learning more about abortion, my ideal ban would include no exceptions because abortion is never, ever needed. Children who are conceived through rape and incest are just as valuable and have the same right to life as children who are not conceived through rape and incest. We should not kill babies because their mother was raped. The person who deserves punishment here is the rapist and mother needs emotional and financial support and thorough medical care. Killing the baby does not solve any issues or remove any trauma.

There is no time when a mothers life is threatened that abortion is the appropriate treatment. When that happens it’s a medical emergency and she should be seen at a hospital and not an abortion clinic. Those cases are usually treated by delivering the baby alive early through an induced labor or c-section. The baby still might not live, but the procedure is not intended to kill them. There are no cases where the treatment needed is to brutally and intentionally kill the baby.

That being said, I would support any abortion bans that included those exceptions because all the things you mentioned are incredibly rare reasons for obtaining abortions and that would still ban nearly 100% of abortions.

Miscarriages should be treated like tragedies they are. That is a baby dying through natural causes, not because someone intentionally murdered them. It’s the difference between someone dying because they were shot in the head and someone dying of cancer. We don’t give criminal charges to parents who lose kids to cancer so why would we do that for miscarriages? There is no crime in a miscarriage. Unless there is reason to believe the miscarriage was caused by something like illegal drugs there’s no reason to do anything from a legal standpoint.

It’s the difference between murder and a natural death.

#answered

[leohtttbriar]

what actually is so jarring about the kira-"pregnancy" plot is that it is very much a narrative version of the violin-player argument in judith jarvis thompson's philosophical defense of abortion. it's an argument that is about how abortion is one thread of legality and personal freedom in the full framework of securing bodily autonomy, so a lot of the argument is not explicitly even about abortion. it posits: "what if one day you wake up and you're connected, with medical tubes and so on, to a violin player (a full adult, with a career and a fully realized person) and the only way this violin player can survive is if you remain connected to them for a month?" then it asks: what if you chose to be connected to this violin player but now you don't want to or you have mixed feelings about it? what if you knew it was a risk from another choice you made? what if halfway through the month you don't want to stay connected? what if it was only an hour? what if was nine months? ultimately, the ethical claim remains: your body is your own. you own your body.

and this is not only important, but it is also interesting. it's the kind of plot star trek writers could write since interrogating the competing values regarding bodily autonomy is a common theme within science-fiction (often treated as a source of the Horrific, but sometimes it's different (see the entirety of octavia butler's oeuvre)). and it would've been especially relevant given that one of the main characters in ds9 is from a society where it is a high honor to take onto the body an entirely other being, and the placement of this other being permanently affects the body such that their removal results in swift death. the enormously complex claims all being made on kira for taking on keiko's pregnancy (from miles and keiko to her own body and person, the threat of death, the threat of connection to the fetus, the treatment she would now receive from others, the treatment she would've received had she refused to take the pregnancy, etc.) should've been talked about, narratively or in dialogue in depth, instead of the vague gestures to the unspoken complexity of the plot and the inside-jokes within production--all of which sort of added up to a weird underlying claim about the exchangability of uteruses across alien-species, as if some mythic universal-womb exists in all "female" persons, and only this magic womb can gestate a fetus despite the whacky technobabble impossible hijinks otherwise present in the star trek narrative reality.

and only jadzia says a single thing about kira having a right to her own body. and it's in a tone-deaf light-hearted scene, where once again the male writers get to indulge in some expression of misogyny by revealing an aspect of ferengi culture that isn't actually that alien to the human world they were writing in (or the plot with kira they were writing), even in that pre-dobbs, mid-90s, ear-plugging left-of-center culture.

#ds9 #oof that post yesterday got me fired up bc to even think about it as a real plot! with feelings and implications! made me feel the loss! #star trek

[killed-by-choice]

Pamala Wainwright, 38

On January 15, 1987, Pamala Wainwright was admitted to Shallowford Community Hospital in Dunwoody, Georgia to have an abortion and a tubal ligation. She never walked out.

Pamala was a married mother of 3 (counting the baby she was 11 weeks pregnant with). One of her kids had Down Syndrome, but it is unknown if this played a part in Pamala’s reasoning to have an abortion.

The next day, Pamala was taken to the operating room. Wendell Phillips was the abortionist who killed Pamala and her third baby.

The abortion was done with a method known as a carbon dioxide abortion, which involved putting a needle into the mother’s abdomen and pumping carbon dioxide to kill the unborn baby. I have been able to find almost no information on this method outside of Pamala’s case.

Phillips did not bother to make sure he put the needle in the right place. He pumped carbon dioxide gas directly into Pamala’s bloodstream, causing vapor lock in her heart that induced cardiac arrest. She was killed almost instantly.

On January 16, 1987, Pamala’s husband became a widower and the father of a dead child. He was left to raise his surviving children as a single father. Had Pamala never undergone an abortion, he would probably have soon celebrated the birth of a family member instead of mourning the deaths of two.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/195244300/pamala-a-wainwright

Fulton County (GA) Superior Court D-62259

https://www.ancientfaces.com/person/pamala-wainwright-birth-1949-death-1987/41248522

"Georgia Death Index, 1933-1998," database, Pamala A Wainwright, 16 Jan 1987; from "Georgia Deaths, 1919-98," database citing DeKalb, Georgia, certificate number 022728, Georgia Health Department, Office of Vital Records, Atlanta.

#tw abortion #pro life #unsafe yet legal #tw murder #tw ab*rtion #abortion #abortion debate #death from legal abortion #tw possible ableism #tw possible eugenics #tw malpractice #tw negligence

[cosmicpuzzle]

8th Ruler and where you will face Crisis? 👾

The 8th ruler often brings sudden and unexpected events in the house it is placed in. The job of the 8th ruler is to bring transformation and spiritual purification through difficult life experiences. It balances your karma The 8th ruler gives bad results if it also rules 3rd or 7th or 11th house simultaneously.

8th Ruler in 1st: You may face challenges with some major health issues, exposure to certain risks, accidents, you should avoid taking too many physical risks as danger is often around you.

8th Ruler in 2nd: You may face challenges with money matters. You may have to rely on others for financial support. Inheritances and tax rebates could be tricky. You could have issues with mouth, throat, teeth and thyroid glands. Early childhood was very poor.

8th Ruler in 3rd: You may face challenges with younger siblings, short road travels, accidents are possible. Your communication can land you in trouble, you may mix sexual remarks in your communication, documentation issues could arise, you may lose imp. Docs.

8th Ruler in 4th: You may face challenges with land, property, vehicles. Your car or property could get damaged. War like situations can affect your property. You may have issues with mother or mother faces major crisis in life. Crisis comes after purchase of property.

8th Ruler in 5th: You may face challenges with child birth, abortions, miscarriages, loss of children. You may incur losses in speculation, trading. You could have heart troubles, cough and asthma. Your crisis could come after birth of children.

8th Ruler in 6th: You may face challenges with in laws, co workers, doctors, your workplace, possibilities of harassment in workplace, you get envy from others, your crisis comes due to your mistakes, legal troubles could arise with marriage.

8th Ruler in 7th: You may face challenges with relationships, marriage. Your relationships end suddenly or your mates cheat you (may be they are already married). You could face crisis in foreign places, road travels. Death could be sudden or due to love crisis.

8th Ruler in 8th: You may face challenges with inheritances, taxes, joint assets, finances, loans, in laws, reproductive system.

8th Ruler in 9th: You may face challenges with higher education, university studies, professors, father, mentors, spiritualists, long travels, foreigners, legal issues, hips, thighs, sciatic nerve. Your luck is wavering.

8th Ruler in 10th: You may face challenges with sticking to one career, you get caught for mistakes or crimes at work done by someone else, your general reputation is at risk, you could be in a taboo career (occult in some societies are considered taboo)

8th Ruler in 11th: You may face challenges with friends, social circle, elder siblings, regular income, paycheck, partner's longevity. Ear troubles could arise. Your finances could be up and down. Trading losses at times. Social anxiety and few friends.

8th Ruler in 12th: You may face challenges with sleep, feet. Your crisis comes in foreign lands. You may break some laws that land you in trouble especially in abroad. Your challenges come due to past life mistakes. You may face crisis with others resources.

For Readings message me here.

#astrology #astrology observations #astrology notes #astrology community #zodiac #zodiac signs #astro community #8th house #8th ruler #8th house lord #houses in astrology #horoscopes #weekly horoscopes #astro notes #vedic astrology #sidereal astrology #aries #taurus #gemini #cancer #leo

[newdog14]

I want to talk to everyone who's still saying "I know Biden is bad, but Trump is worse, so just vote Blue."

I know that American Politics sucks right now. Everyone is a bad option and every year our options get worse. I get it, and it sucks, but here's the thing: If we keep saying "Vote Blue no matter what!" then the Democratic party is never going to get better. In fact, it'll probably get worse, because if ignoring the voices of their voter base doesn't lose them votes, then why bother listening?

If you want things to get better, if you want politicians that you can vote for without feeling like you've betrayed your ethics, then we need to show that we WILL stop voting for people who we don't agree with. We need to show that the American people have heard Biden's Administration say "There are no red lines for Israel" and we do not agree.

Politicians only care about us for our votes. If supporting genocides demonstrably loses votes, then politicians will take note and change their policies in accordance. But if we vote Biden no matter what, if we vote Blue no matter what, then they aren't going to listen to us when we call and protest and scream.

Now, some of you may be thinking, what about Trump?

There is a chance he won't be able to run after all; he's currently in a legal shit storm that got his ability to do business in New York revoked. And with many of his co-defendants and associates pleading guilty things aren't looking good for him. Even if he can dodge the numerous felony fraud charges he's been hit with, this is going to be an expensive, embarrassing, dragged out process that will severely limit his time and funds for campaigning.

That doesn't mean he won't find his way onto the ballot anyway, but he hasn't won the Republican nomination yet. Even if he does though, sticking by Biden doesn't mean you're putting someone better in the White House. Given the ever climbing death toll that Biden is not just ignoring but enabling, it’s getting increasingly difficult, at least for me, to believe that Trump is actually worse. They’re both bad, and they’re both hurting people, so instead let’s look at why so many are clinging to the democratic party, even in the face of a genocide.

I know the biggest reason so many folks are hesitating to cut support for Biden is that they're worried about what that means for those of us in the United States.

Who will stop the anti-trans bathroom bills that keep popping up? Who will keep abortion bans off the books? Who will prevent censorship in schools?

Well, in point of fact, not your president!

Think about it. Did Biden being president put a stop to Florida's "don't say gay" bill? No. He had zero impact there.

Is he what stands between Virginia and the Abortion Ban currently being proposed for the state? Also no. He's not involved at all.

Has Biden stopped the bans on Drag Shows so many states are trying to implement? No, the Federal Courts have been doing that, including judges who were appointed by Trump.

See, the President of the United States is all about the big picture. Their opinions matter, and they can set a tone for their party, but they don’t control everything. Their impacts on the governing of states come from the people they appoint, like judges, but even then, most people will still do their jobs over pleasing the person who got them that job. Especially so because federal judges are actually really difficult to remove, and that only really happens if they’re so bad at following the rules that congress gets rid of them.

I’m not sure if Biden can’t stop states from making laws or if he just wouldn’t, but either way he’s not protecting us. 

The President honestly can’t do a hell of a lot to the American people, especially not in just four years. That’s why we survived Trump’s first presidency, and it’s why we as a whole would survive it if he got a second term.

The place where a President’s influence is immediately and drastically felt, however, is in the international sphere. The American people are protected, the citizens of the world are not, and with that fun little “well we’re not declaring war” workaround, the President, aka the Commander in Chief of the US Military, can do a hell of a lot of damage.

The people of Palestine may not survive another four years of Biden’s presidency. If things carry on like they are, they may not survive the remaining one year of his term.

So we the American people need to show that we will not stand by a president that endorses genocide. We need to show that we will not stand by a party that endorses genocide. We need to start talking, and loudly, about how we will not be voting for Biden next year. We need it to be clear that it is specifically his foreign policy that has lost his support, and that we will not be willing to just switch him out for a newer model who reminds me of no one so much as a modern day Aaron Burr.

There are a lot of things that we can do to express our displeasure for Biden, and for Israel, and there are a lot of people who can help you call for change, plan boycotts, organize marches, and determine where to aim direct action to have the greatest impact. But all of that needs to be done while putting our votes where our voices are, or else all of that rage will burn out and nothing will really change, just like it has in the Black Lives Matter movement.

In this case, as we do not currently have a better option, the place to put our presidential votes is with no one.

It’s not an ideal solution, I know. After all the years we’ve spent saying, “Vote! Vote no matter what! Vote or else you can’t complain about what happens!”, not voting feels like one of the most counterproductive moves to make. The reason we have to do it though, is because voting in the same sort of people and hoping they’ll make things better isn’t working, and we’re never going to get new options if we keep supporting the old ones. Cutting support for Biden, for Democrats on the national level, without a viable alternative isn't an easy choice to make. It's scary and I admit that it's kind of a gamble. No one has ever tried it before, not the way I'm hoping you all will.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?” It’s time for us to break. No more unconditional blue votes. 

We have to force the Democratic party to recognize that their voting base will not just mindlessly support them, and that the candidates they put forth will be expected to hold up a certain moral standard. Our democracy is skewed to favor the opinions of corporations and the mega rich, but politicians do still need the masses to vote them into office, just like companies need us to buy things so that they can make money in the first place, and voting margins are tight enough that just like in the Speaker of the House vote, it won’t actually take that many of us to throw a wrench in the party’s bottom line.

We might not be able to win, but we can make sure that they lose until they shape up and start making meaningful changes.

And you may be thinking, won’t that just leave us in the hands of Republicans?

I want you to scroll back up. Look at all the bills I brought up that Biden didn’t stop. We are already in Republican hands, and the majority of Democrats are not willing to actually stand up to them.

That said, not voting across the board isn’t what I’m asking you to do. 

Our choices for President may be shot to hell, but there will be other people on that ballot in 2024. Local people, who will very directly affect your hometown and not much outside of it. Vote for your local sheriff, for your school board members, for your mayor and your state delegates. 

These are the people who control whether or not your senator can pass a drag show ban. These are the people who enable or block bills that hurt LGBTQ+ students. These are the folks who vote on whether or not to pass abortion bans. And in local elections? Your vote really, truly counts in a way that it just can’t on a national level.

And it’s not just people who wind up on your ballots. Local initiatives for conservation, funding for infrastructure, redistricting drives, and changes to your state’s constitution appear on your ballots too, and those are things that you’re going to want to have a say in.

There’s more to this mess than just voting or not voting, of course. There is always going to be more than one step we have to take to force change. That's why we cannot and do not vote inside a vacuum. We still have to make calls, and go to protests, and put our money where our morals are. Change isn't easy, and when you're fighting a decades old machine it's not quick either. But the longer we drag our feet about pushing back, the longer we keep betting on the lesser evil to change, the worse our options will get.

It might feel hopeless right now. Like our voices don't matter, and that we're screaming our lungs out alone. We can't give up though. We can't give into despair, and we can’t let up the pressure before new voices step forward, even if it takes time, and even if it takes more effort then checking a box or sharing a post.

One step will never be enough on its own, but every step we take adds up, and when we take those steps together we magnify our voices into something that cannot be ignored.

This is how we force our politicians to change: consequences and losses. If we start up early enough we might even get better options who could actually win the presidency, but we can't balk if we don't.

I know you might be scared to lose this election. As I write this, it feels counterintuitive, and it's something I never could have imagined saying years ago. But we can't change our political options unless we force politicians to change, and that only happens if they can't get elected as they are.

So don't elect them, and make sure they know that you're doing it on purpose and for a reason.

#american politics #us politics #political #vote #free palestine #palestine

[heterorealism]

These interactions with women, or rather, these actions upon women, make men feel good, walk tall, feel refreshed, invigorated. Men are drained and depleted by their living by themselves and with and among other men, and are revived and refreshed, re-created, by going home and being served dinner, changing to clean clothes, having sex with the wife; or by dropping by the apartment of a woman friend to be served coffee or a drink and stroked in one way or another; or by picking up a prostitute for a quicky or for a dip in favorite sexual escape fantasies; or by raping refugees from their wars (foreign and domestic). The ministrations of women, be they willing or unwilling, free or paid for, are what restore in men the strength, will and confidence to go on with what they call living.

If it is true that a fundamental aspect of the relations between the sexes is male parasitism, it might help to explain why certain issues are particularly exciting to patriarchal loyalists. For instance, in view of the obvious advantages of easy abortion to population control, to control of welfare rolls, and to ensuring sexual availability of women to men, it is a little surprising that the loyalists are so adamant and riled up in their objection to it. But look.

The fetus lives parasitically. It is a distinct animal surviving off the life (the blood) of another animal creature. It is incapable of surviving on its own resources, of independent nutrition; incapable even of symbiosis. If it is true that males live parasitically upon females, it seems reasonable to suppose that many of them and those loyal to them are in some way sensitive to the parallelism between their situation and that of the fetus. They could easily identify with the fetus. The woman who is free to see the fetus as a parasite(F4) might be free to see the man as a parasite. The woman’s willingness to cut off the life line to one parasite suggests a willingness to cut off the life line to another parasite. The woman who is capable (legally, psychologically, physically) of decisively, self-interestedly, independently rejecting the one parasite, is capable of rejecting, with the same decisiveness and independence, the like burden of the other parasite. In the eyes of the other parasite, the image of the wholly self-determined abortion, involving not even a ritual submission to male veto power, is the mirror image of death.

- Marilyn Frye, Politics of Reality

#heterorealism #heteropessimism #feminism #dating advice #gender #misandry #men aint shit #dating #dump him #male parasitism #weaponized incompetence #compulsive heterosexuality #pro choice

[thelastharbinger]

Did not have the U.S. government holding hearings on previously classified information and lying making confirmations under oath that they are in possession of alien bodies and ufos in order to distract from the fact that covid-19 is still the leading cause of death in children, the cost of living is astronomical, cop city is well underway despite Atlanta residents overwhelmingly crying out against it, we are experiencing the hottest & deadliest temperatures on record, the state of Florida trying to rewrite history to say that slavery was just a mutually beneficial unpaid internship, trans lives and rights are under attack, anti drag laws, FLINT MICHIGAN STILL DOES NOT HAVE CLEAN DRINKING WATER, anti-discrimination laws being reversed, Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action, Roe v. Wade undone, universal free school lunches are on the ballot, ongoing mass shootings, climate change, big pharma killing off people by withholding live saving drugs at ungodly market prices, the erasure of separation of church and state, AI surveillance being implemented to detect fare evasion for increasingly costly public transport services, the rise of fascim, proud boys showing up with military grade weapons at libraries and day care centers, the permitted attempted coup of the capital, labor union strikes happening all over the country, people dying of heat in Texas because evil landlords want to cut off cooling over an unpaid $51 utility bill, train derailments causing toxic waste spills, corruption within the highest court in the land, homelessness rates the highest its ever been, migrants and asylum seekers being kicked out of temporary housing, the cost of food, book bans, Miranda Rights no longer being stated, mayors deciding to no longer publicly disclose how many people are dying pre-trial in detention facilities, federal minimum wage still $7.25, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, oil pipeline constructions on native lands, something like 30-50% of the nation's drinking water contaminated with forever chemicals, the rich remaining untaxed, biden going back on his campaign promises to forgive all student debt, still no free universal healthcare, ICE deportations increasing under biden admin, the u.s. yet maintaining colonies, teens and women getting jail time for miscarriages and abortions, 100 companies globally responsible for 70 or 80-something percent of all CO2 emissions, we are living in a police state, diseases resurfacing after years with no cases due to rising temps, death penalty, public services being defunded to increase military and police spending budgets, and abusers suing victims for defamation cases in court so that they legally cannot talk about it, and setting a dangerous precedent in the process in my 2023 bingo card but here we god damn are.

#2023 is a goddamn JOKE #aliens #us government #us govt #aliens and ufos #2023 bingo #land temp in spain was 140 degrees 2 days ago. owners r gonna have to start buying shoes for their pups out of obligation bc paws on fire. #i hate it here so bad #like can the aliens fix racism?

[haggishlyhagging]

The male Left abandoned abortion rights for genuinely awful reasons: the boys were not getting laid; there was bitterness and anger against feminists for ending a movement (by withdrawing from it) that was both power and sex for the men; there was also the familiar callous indifference of the sexual exploiter—if he couldn't screw her she wasn't real.

The hope of the male Left is that the loss of abortion rights will drive women back into the ranks—even fear of losing might do that; and the male Left has done what it can to assure the loss. The Left has created a vacuum that the Right has expanded to fill—this the Left did by abandoning a just cause, by its decade of quietism, by its decade of sulking. But the Left has not just been an absence; it has been a presence, outraged at women's controlling their own bodies, outraged at women's organizing against sexual exploitation, which by definition means women also organizing against the sexual values of the Left. When feminist women have lost legal abortion altogether, leftist men expect them back—begging for help, properly chastened, ready to make a deal, ready to spread their legs again. On the Left, women will have abortion on male terms, as part of sexual liberation, or women will not have abortion except at risk of death.

And the boys of the sixties did grow up too. They actually grew older. They are now men in life, not just in the fuck. They want babies. Compulsory pregnancy is about the only way they are sure to get them.

-Andrea Dworkin, Right Wing Women

#andrea dworkin #right wing women #amerika #leftism #female oppression #abortion #male entitlement #forced birth

[inkskinned]

this is , and has always been , about control.

my father is a deacon in the Catholic church. i can say with authority and extreme research: abortion is not murder in the scripture. it has the same significance as "only fish on fridays during lent" - it is an invention of man and tradition.

if they cared about children, marrying a 13 year old would be illegal in every state. it is not illegal in every state. if they cared about children, about lives lost, about the value of life: they would have worked to make that life have value. where is the church, the religion - where is that, when it is time for anything else? when they close their eyes to their own priests? when they close their eyes to domestic violence? to marital rape?

if it was about life, prevention would be key. proper sex ed would be in every school. options for birth control would be in every hallway. we know these things work. we have known for a while. hiding from the problem never diminishes the problem. we are not seeking to actually-prevent unwanted pregnancies - so therefore an unwanted pregnancy must work as punishment for a behavior that is otherwise uncontrolled.

this is not about when and where life begins. there is already a discussion of bodily autonomy that exists, and it is legally bound to us. if i have died, even if my body could save one million children - i am not legally bound to give that body to those children. in death, where there is no debate; that the human soul or life or essence has passed from me - i still retain autonomy, and owe those children nothing.

jesus said, specifically, that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of god. it is a thesis restated many times in the bible; textual and specific evidence. and yet the church has not lobbied for wealth redistribution on the grounds that billionaires are going to hell, only prayed for the spirit of charity to flow amongst us. the american christian population is not disturbed and ashamed of their wealth. instead they see their wealth as a gift from god. there are not entire churches dedicated to picketing the estates of billionaires (unfortunately). it cannot be about the biblical evidence or jesus's word, then.

it is about control. and people are going to die. and the church - despite telling us over and over how all life is precious, perfect, present - they will look at the bodies and shrug and say: your fault, shouldn't have sinned. and then they will turn their eyes away.

#im so.... tired #mad #thinking about the lilywhite hands of moderates #and how they'll bluster about how sad they are #knowing - KNOWING - they have the power #but none of the spine to use it