#five years before roe v. wade?

[dammitkirk]

god, can you believe that star trek went after the anti-choice crowd in 1969?

#text post #and when you consider it was for sure written before that? #five years before roe v. wade? #st:ml pairing #the mark of gideon

[tomorrowusa]

The Arizona Supreme Court, entirely appointed by Republicans, has banned almost all abortions in the state.

They made their decision based on a law passed in 1864 – one year after Arizona was organized as a territory and 48 years before it became the 48th state. 1864 was during the Civil War and Confederates had been trying to occupy the southern halves of what are now New Mexico and Arizona.

GOP anti-abortion fanatics are currently using their overturning of Roe v. Wade to resuscitate long dormant legislation like the 1864 Arizona territory law and the federal 1873 Comstock Act to destroy reproductive freedom wherever they can.

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled Tuesday the state must adhere to a 160-year-old law barring all abortions except in cases when “it is necessary to save” a pregnant person’s life – a significant ruling that will make a Civil War-era abortion law enforceable in the state. The law can be traced to as early as 1864 – before Arizona became a state – and was codified in 1901. It carries a prison sentence of two to five years for abortion providers – and it puts Arizona among the states with the strictest abortion laws in the country, alongside Texas, Alabama and Mississippi, where bans exist with almost no exceptions. [ ... ] The 4-2 ruling stems from a case that was revived after the US Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in June 2022, ruling there was no longer a federal constitutional right to an abortion. Arizona’s former attorney general then moved to make the state’s near-total abortion ban enforceable again, but was opposed by Planned Parenthood Arizona, sparking yearslong legal challenges that led to Tuesday’s ruling.

Fortunately Arizona has a relatively new Democratic governor who will fight the ruling.

Arizona’s Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs also blasted the ruling, telling residents in an online video statement “the fight for our reproductive freedoms is far from over.” “I’ve personally experienced the anguish of losing a pregnancy and I know it’s outrageous to have the government tell you that the best decision for your health or future could now be considered a crime,” Hobbs said. “I will not stop fighting until we have fully secured the right to reproductive healthcare in our state.”

President Biden, who has made Restore Roe part of his re-election campaign, has condemned the ruling.

And President Joe Biden said in a statement, "Millions of Arizonans will soon live under an even more extreme and dangerous  abortion ban, which fails to protect women even when their health is at risk or in tragic cases of rape or incest."

Arizona is a swing state. In addition to the presidential race, there is an open seat for US Senate and a couple of House districts which were very narrowly won by Republicans in 2022.

The Arizona Supreme Court ruling is another example of why we MUST pay more attention to state government. Start by learning exactly who represents you in your state legislature.

Find Your Legislators Look your legislators up by address or use your current location.

BONUS FOOTNOTE:

The 1864 Arizona law was made part of an 1865 codification of territorial laws known as the Howell Code; read it here. It's Chapter X Sec. 45 which concerns abortion – referring to it as procuring miscarriage. The Howell Code, cited in the Arizona Supreme Court decision, is hopelessly out of date. One startling example is the prohibition of interracial marriage in Chapter XXX Sec. 3...

Effectively, Republicans would like to return America to the mid 19th century – both legally and socially.

#abortion #arizona #arizona supreme court #republicans #the howell code #gop anti-abortion fanatics #dobbs v. jackson women's health organization #a woman's right to choose #reproductive freedom #roe v. wade #restore roe #katie hobbs #joe biden #election 2024 #vote blue no matter who

[coochiequeens]

MEXICO CITY — Abortion pills smuggled into the United States from Mexico inside teddy bears. A New York home used as a pill distribution hub. A small apartment just south of the U.S.-Mexico border converted into a safe place for women to end their pregnancies.

Networks of Mexican feminist collectives working with counterparts in the United States are ramping up their efforts to help women in the U.S. who are losing access to abortion services to end their pregnancies.

With the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the landmark decision that gave women the right to access abortion last week, these networks of activists are preparing to be busier than ever. So far this year, according to the organizations, they have helped at least 1,700 women living the U.S. who have sought their help.

The number may seem anecdotal, but it’s exponentially higher than what they saw before. With a number of U.S. states already enacting abortion bans since the court overturned Roe v. Wade last week, the activists expect the pace to continue increasing.

“The demand is going to triple,” said Sandra Cardona of “I Need an Abortion,” a collective based in the northern Mexico city of Monterrey, 138 miles from Texas. “Before we accompanied about five women a month from the United States; now there are five to seven a week.”

These organizations’ strategy is clear: a self-managed abortion, that is to say, putting the abortion-inducing misoprostol and mifepristone in the hands of women who want to end their pregnancies and accompanying them, usually virtually, when they take the drugs.

The drugs are legal in the United States and more than half of the abortions performed there in 2020 used them, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights organization. But there they require a doctor’s prescription, some states require a doctor to be present and they are usually taken in women’s health clinics, many of which have been forced to close.

In addition to the 13 states that already have laws banning abortion, there are another half-dozen that have almost complete bans or that do not permit them after six weeks, when many women do not know they are pregnant.

So there’s no doubt that the alternative will be abortions at home. And that is something with which the Mexican activists have a lot of experience. Even though Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled last year that it was unconstitutional to consider abortion a crime and 10 states have made it legal, not all have abortion services and abortion, with some exceptions, remains a crime in 22 states of the strongly Catholic country.

“At the same time that we were taking it for granted in the United States, people in Mexico, advocates in Mexico, have been working and testing narratives and building, building power, convincing people that their message was the correct one,” said Texas state lawmaker Erin Zwiener during a visit to Mexico in May.

Mexican activists built networks, battled the stigma, pushed for legal changes and little by little made headway, Zwiener said.

Their strategy since January has been the same, but cross-border.

Collectives far from the U.S. border like Unasse in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula coordinate donations from abroad to buy the pills, explained Amelia Ojeda, one of its members. Others to the north, focus on getting the pills into the United States inside toys, jars of vitamins or sewn into the hems of clothing.

“Those who are detected at the border, it’s like you were crossing drugs,” said Marcela Castro of Green Tide Chihuahua, a state bordering Texas. There are also women who live between the two countries and carry them when they fly.

The pills are then stored at so-called “medicine banks,” that are really private homes in strategic cities in Texas or even in New York where abortion remains legal.

From there they are distributed by low-profile volunteers by any means available -- hand-to-hand, through the mail, etc. -- to women across the country who need them. Most are in states like Texas and Oklahoma that have imposed bans, but also states where abortion remains legal but women prefer to end their pregnancies in the privacy of their homes.

“The new modern menace is a chemical or medical abortion with pills ordered online and mailed directly to a woman’s home,” Randall O’Bannon, an anti-abortion activist, said at a national convention last week in Atlanta. “With Roe headed for the dustbin of history, and states gaining the power to limit abortions, this is where the battle is going to be played out over the next several years”.

“Medication abortion will be where access to abortion is decided,” said Mary Ziegler, a professor at Florida State University College of Law who specializes in reproductive rights, told the AP last month. “That’s going to be the battleground that decides how enforceable abortion bans are.”

Las Libres -- The Free -- one of the most experienced groups in Latin America has a strong network network of allies in Mexico. Just there people have helped 1,500 women living in the United States this year with pills, information and accompaniment.

#Las Libres #Reproductive justice #abortion access

[kadoore]

This week is our 9 year legalversary! 🥳

...which we don't typically celebrate beyond a little cake and some light "huh, isn't it silly we have two anniversaries... three if you count when it became legal in AZ... four if you count when Obergefell was overturned..."

But this PRIDE is more fraught than recent ones, and our rights a bit less in stone* than usual and with the rollback of Roe v Wade, well... I try not to take any of this for granted.

Sometimes I feel a bit silly celebrating the legalversary on top of our real anniversary, but then when friends and family ask what I mean, I remember: it's only been a few years since same-sex marriage was made legal in our country, yet so many people have already forgotten how hard-fought these rights were.

No one would have blinked an eye at two anniversaries just five years ago. So many queer folks had claimed marriage for themselves before it was endowed by the state. That's how it's always been to be queer: fuck the establishment, we'll take what's ours.

So yeah: happy legalversary to us, happy legalversary to every queer person who grew up being told same-sex marriage was an abomination, wasn't worth fighting for.

#PRIDE #gay thoughts #marriage equality

[she-karev]

Birth

Age Rating: 12+

Chapters: One of Two

Fandom: Grey’s Anatomy

AN: Hey guys here’s the next story I hope you like it and I’ll post the next one in the morning.

Summary: Amber is in a delivery room in labor with Andrew by her side and Addison Montgomery as her doctor.

Words: 1930

I groan out in pain lying in my birthing bed wearing a hospital gown so I can finally give birth. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of pain before that happens based on how I’m leaning forward while my uterus tightens up. All I can do is hold Andrew’s hand as the next contraction comes and hits me like a truck. Dr. Addison Montgomery is also in the room feeling around my stomach as I collapse on the bed once the contraction ends. I let go of Andrew’s hand and he rubs it clearly hurting after my vice grip.

Addison moves back and checks the monitor for my vitals, “Okay Dr. DeLuca your contractions are 10 minutes apart and you’re progressing very nicely.”

Her diagnosis is pissing me off, “Oh god that’s what you call progressing nicely you rotten old bat. Ugh! I call it a bumpy road trip down to hell.”

Andrew steps in to humanize me as he curls his fist to make sure I didn’t break any bones, “She didn’t mean that, the ‘rotten old bat’ part.”

“I think I did.”

Andrew chuckles nervously and tries again, “We both appreciate you taking the time to deliver our baby. I’m sure your schedule is packed.”

Addison isn’t mad though she just grins, “Oh no please ever since Roe V Wade was overturned, I’m in the front row of the fallout. A birth is something I needed to bring some joy into my life and remind me why I first got into OB so thank you.”

I sigh at that, “Any chance you can thank me by taking over?”

Addison chuckles, “It’s okay everybody reacts to giving birth differently. I’ve been in this specialty for almost 30 years believe me I have seen it all.”

I exhale as Andrew chuckles and explains, “I wouldn’t bet on it Dr. Montgomery, Amber is a very unique individual.”

I glare at him, “Shut up Andrew nobody is asking for your opinion.” He simply nods knowing better than to challenge me in the state I’m in.

“I’m sure you both know this but the next step is to wait for the contractions to get a little closer together before asking you to push.”

“Oh god they get closer together?” I ask terrified then remember I have an MD, “Wait a minute I knew that. Of course, I knew that I’m a doctor I would have to know that.” I sigh and remorse comes to me as I face Addison, “I’m sorry I called you a rotten old bat. You actually look very good for your age.”

She chuckles at that, “It’s okay and yes you did know that. If you didn’t, I would be dealing with your brother intern year again.” I chuckle lightly at that, “Don’t worry Amber you know everything you need to know about giving birth and whatever you forget your husband will be there to remind you. Your next contraction is in ten minutes I have a consult to get to but I will be right back.” Dr. Montgomery begins to walk out the door with Andrew looking worried about being left alone with me but he stands by my side and holds my hand again.

“Okay so breathe through your nose.”

“Do not tell me what to do.” My hormones and contractions are making me extra cranky, “Ugh I need to walk around get me off this bed.”

“Are you sure?” Andrew asks causing me to glare at him which scares him so much he complies, “Okay then let’s walk around the room for a bit here we go.” He helps me off the bed and I make it to five feet before I lean my elbows against the table breathing in and out with Andrew rubbing my back to comfort me, “So I’m gonna risk poking the bear and ask have you thought of a name for the child to be?”

I look behind to narrow my eyes at him, “Really? Now? You pick now to ask that? I am about to push a melon through a keyhole and you choose to bring up how we’re lagging in the name department?”

He rubs my back and continues, “I think now is the right time, I know we said TBD but we should probably D it before we have a chubby faced baby and a blank line on the birth certificate. We ruled out your mom for obvious reasons, what about grandma’s? I’ve got Aria, and Adelina, you?”

I inhale deeply and exhale before responding, “You mean Miriam and Ruth who rejected me and left me and my brothers to fend for ourselves in foster care when their son and daughter couldn’t take care of us? You want to name our loved daughter after those negligent bitches?”

He winces at that harsh reminder, “You know what let’s forget grandparents how about we meet her first and it’ll come to us.”

I groan at my discomfort again, “Whatever gets you to shut up I will take it. God why did I talk myself into this? Why didn’t I wait until electric wombs were invented or cloning was in human trials? I could’ve saved myself so much misery.”

He runs his hands through my hair, “You’re doing great just breathe through the pain.”

I breathe like he suggests, “Shut up about my pain, you don’t know what is going on inside my body right now.”

“I don’t know I was beaten and stabbed I’m sure I can relate on some level.”

I grip the ends of the table as sweat drips from my forehead, “I was beaten too and this right here this is like getting stabbed a hundred times in your pelvis and you’re pooping out your insides.”

His eyes widen at that image, “That does sound painful.” Suddenly my emotions get the better of me and I go from angry to sad because I start to cry and then sob like a lunatic. I can tell Andrew is surprised but he stays and rubs my shoulders, “Oh no, hey it’s okay the pain is all a natural part of labor I don’t know it personally but the one upside to riding this out is having a baby in the end to make it all worth it. I mean that’s something isn’t it?” I still sob though and I can tell Andrew is stumped but trying to mend me as he affectionately rubs my back, “Come on I’m sorry I would make it so this process has no pain at all. I would make it to where you push and then pop we have a baby trust me.”

I sniffle and stop sobbing but I still have tears in my eyes, “It’s not the pain, I grew up in a hell house, my foster parents were crap, my brother beat me to near death and I worked in a hospital during covid I can handle the pain.” I tear up and my voice hitches, “I’m sad because I’m afraid of continuing the cycle.”

“What? What do you mean?”

I sniffle as I walk back to the bed with Andrew helping me up, “I mean what person thought ‘oh look here’s a baby now I have something to hit’ maybe my dad didn’t same for my mom but look at what they did in their trial as parents. I already look like my mom what if I do to our kids what she did to hers?”

He looks at me in sympathy as he helps me lie down in bed and covers me with a blanket, “Amber-”

I hold my hand up to silence him, “No I know what this is, I know it’s the hormones causing all this crazy thinking and I should ignore it but I can’t because there’s no off switch and it’s not like some creep in a bus you just avoid eye contact with. All of this uncertainty brings me back to my childhood when I would watch my mom get dragged away by orderlies screaming nonsense about the government watching us through the smoke alarms which I genuinely believed until that day. And now I’m about to become a mother and suddenly I think ‘what if I’m like her?’” I tear up again, “And she was the worst mother in the world. What if I’m just the latest in my family’s long line of horrible mothers?” I sob again, putting my hand over my eyes so I don’t see the look on Andrew’s face as I break down in the worst time possible.

“Shh it’s okay it’s gonna be okay.” I still sob as he tries to soothe me, “Look I thought the same thing when I started getting manic okay? Remember when I was at my worst and I took it out on everyone and you especially?” I sob harder at that memory, “Sorry I have a point here I promise. I thought the diagnosis was the end and I was just like my manic and reckless father who refuses to talk to me. I pushed you away, I quit my job and I let myself get in the deep end. I thought I was doomed but I wasn’t, Carina, Webber and Bailey they all showed me that and I decided to prove myself wrong and I did. And now I’m good not cured but good and despite everything I did I earned your trust back. I did that and I am so glad I did because it brought me to this moment with you.” I calm down a bit remembering that as awful as that period of our lives was it brought us closer together and made us stronger as a couple.

“Look I’m not saying I’m not scared too I get terrified thinking I’m gonna screw up this kid like my dad screwed me up but I know that I’m not and I know that you’re not gonna repeat your mom’s mistakes either.” I wipe a tear away as my sobs lessen, “I know you had a crappy mom but at the very least you know what not to do. You’re the strongest, most caring, and compassionate person I know and this kid could do a lot worse for a mom. Amber we’re not our parent’s, we’re us and I don’t think I know we’re gonna end our family pattern. It stops here with me and you. It ends with us.”

My sobs stop completely as I let his speech sink in and I become less afraid. It’s the hormones but it’s also my fear of ending up like my mother that has been in my mind for years. I don’t know how this is gonna go but I know how it’s not and I’ll be damned if it does. His last words hit me and I raise an eyebrow at him recognizing it, “You read that Colleen Hoover book I got for me didn’t you?”

His eyes widen at that, “Well…I…” He sighs as he confesses, “It was on your nightstand I decided to read a chapter…I ended up reading the whole thing while you were asleep.” I laugh at that imaging him reading a recently popular romance drama that even got me stirred up in emotions, “It was pretty good.”

I nod in agreement, “It was. Thanks for making me laugh.”

“Thank Colleen.” I chuckle, “The next contraction is in 30 seconds do you want to hold my hand?”

“Don’t hate me if I break it.” I grab his hand and grip it as the next fireball of pain takes me causing me to scream.

#greys anatomy #greysanatomyedit #greysedit #amber karev #andrew deluca #addison montgomery #season 19 #elizabeth gillies #liz gillies #giacomo gianniotti #headcanon #labor pain #mine

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 9, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 10, 2024

Yesterday, former president Trump released a video celebrating state control over abortion; today, a judicial decision in Arizona illuminated just what such state control means. With the federal recognition of the constitutional right to abortion gone since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, old laws left on state books once again are becoming the law of the land.

In a 4–2 decision, the all-Republican Arizona Supreme Court today said it would not interfere with the authority of the state legislature to write abortion policy, letting the state revert to an 1864 law that bans abortion unless the mother’s life is in danger. “[P]hysicians are now on notice that all abortions, except those necessary to save a woman’s life, are illegal,” the decision read.

The court explained: “A policy matter of this gravity must ultimately be resolved by our citizens through the legislature or the initiative process…. We defer, as we are constitutionally obligated to do, to the legislature’s judgment, which is accountable to, and thus reflects, the mutable will of our citizens.”

The idea that abortion law must be controlled by state legislatures is in keeping with the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. But it’s an interesting spin to say that the new policy is protecting the will of the citizens. 

The Arizona law that will begin to be enforced in 14 days was written by a single man in 1864. 

In 1864, Arizona was not a state, women and minorities could not vote, and doctors were still sewing up wounds with horsehair and storing their unwashed medical instruments in velvet-lined cases. 

And, of course, the United States was in the midst of the Civil War.

In fact, the 1864 law soon to be in force again in Arizona to control women’s reproductive rights in the twenty-first century does not appear particularly concerned with women handling their own reproductive care in the nineteenth—it actually seems to ignore that practice entirely. The laws for Arizona Territory, chaotic and still at war in 1864, appear to reflect the need to rein in a lawless population of men. 

The 1864 Arizona criminal code talks about “miscarriage” in the context of other male misbehavior. It focuses at great length on dueling, for example—making illegal not only the act of dueling (punishable by three years in jail) but also having anything to do with a duel. And then, in the section that became the law now resurrected in Arizona, the law takes on the issue of poisoning. 

In that context, the context of punishing those who secretly administer poison to kill someone, it says that anyone who uses poison or instruments “with the intention to procure the miscarriage of any woman then being with child” would face two to five years in jail, “Provided, that no physician shall be affected by the last clause of this section, who in the discharge of his professional duties deems it necessary to produce the miscarriage of any woman in order to save her life.” 

The next section warns against cutting out tongues or eyes, slitting noses or lips, or “rendering…useless” someone’s arm or leg.

The law that Arizona will use to outlaw abortion care seemed designed to keep men in the chaos of the Civil War from inflicting damage on others—including pregnant women—rather than to police women’s reproductive care, which women largely handled on their own or through the help of doctors who used drugs and instruments to remove what they called dangerous blockages of women’s natural cycles in the four to five months before fetal movement became obvious.

Written to police the behavior of men, the code tells a larger story about power and control. 

The Arizona Territorial Legislature in 1864 had 18 men in the lower House of Representatives and 9 men in the upper house, the Council, for a total of 27 men. They met on September 26, 1864, in Prescott. The session ended about six weeks later, on November 10. 

The very first thing the legislators did was to authorize the governor to appoint a commissioner to prepare a code of laws for the territory. But William T. Howell, a judge who had arrived in the territory the previous December, had already written one, which the legislature promptly accepted as a blueprint.

Although they did discuss his laws, the members later thanked Judge Howell for “preparing his excellent and able Code of Laws” and, as a mark of their appreciation, provided that the laws would officially be called “The Howell Code.” (They also paid him a handsome $2,500, which was equivalent to at least three years’ salary for a workingman in that era.) Judge Howell wrote the territory’s criminal code essentially single-handedly.

The second thing the legislature did was to give a member of the House of Representatives a divorce from his wife. 

Then they established a county road near Prescott.

Then they gave a local army surgeon a divorce from his wife. 

In a total of 40 laws, the legislature incorporated a number of road companies, railway companies, ferry companies, and mining companies. They appropriated money for schools and incorporated the Arizona Historical Society.

These 27 men constructed a body of laws to bring order to the territory and to jump-start development. But their vision for the territory was a very particular one. 

The legislature provided that “[n]o black or mulatto, or Indian, Mongolian, or Asiatic, shall be permitted to [testify in court] against any white person,” thus making it impossible for them to protect their property, their families, or themselves from their white neighbors. It declared that “all marriages between a white person and a [Black person], shall…be absolutely void.”

And it defined the age of consent for sexual intercourse to be just ten years old (even if a younger child had “consented”). 

So, in 1864, a legislature of 27 white men created a body of laws that discriminated against Black people and people of color and considered girls as young as ten able to consent to sex, and they adopted a body of criminal laws written by one single man.

And in 2024, one of those laws is back in force in Arizona.

Now, though, women can vote.

Before the midterm elections, 61% of Arizona voters told AP VoteCast they believed abortion should be legal in most or all cases, while only 6% said it should be illegal in all cases. A campaign underway to place a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights on November’s ballot needs to gather 383,923 verified signatures by July; a week ago the campaign announced it already had 500,000 signatures.

It seems likely that voters will turn out in November to elect lawmakers who will represent the actual will of the people in the twenty-first century. 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #women's rights #reproductive health #reproductive rights #MAGA authoritarianism #religious fundamentalism #Arizona #States rights #anti-woman

[hldailyupdate]

This week the European leg of Harry Styles's much-publicised Love on Tour concludes in Lisbon. It's the final stop on a trip promoting the now Mercury Prize-nominated album, Harry's House, which has seen the singer turn his concerts into a space that holds a mirror up to his audience, making the show as much about them as him.

In and amongst the wide-leg trousers and wild-eyed dancing there have been stories of Styles helping to orchestrate marriage proposals and gender reveals from the stage, consoling fans who have been cheated on or helping others come out in a ceremony officiated under a rippling rainbow flag. For the thousands who have bought tickets, Love on Tour has been a travelling circus filled with the kind of innocent joy that pop music can inspire, as well as a place where Styles's young fans can come as they are and, for a few hours, unburden themselves from the weight of the world.

As one of the biggest pop stars on the planet, Harry Styles's repeated signposting of his concerts as a place of progressivism has served as a powerful antidote to the ongoing culture wars around identity politics. The tour has been punctuated with moments of the singer proudly demonstrating his beliefs, holding up flags borrowed from members of the crowd to pledge his allegiance to everything from Black Lives Matter to bisexual visibility. Following the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas in May, Styles announced he would be donating $1M from ticket sales to gun safety group Everytown, and in the wake of landmark American abortion legislation Roe v Wade being overturned the following month, Styles plucked a fan's sign that read My Body My Choice from a crowd member, carefully placing it in front of his drummer's kit.

These incidents can be easily waved away as cheap ploys for viral moments and trending stories, but Styles' brand of pop-timisim has a ring of authenticity that is central to his appeal. On matters of identity, sexuality and even love, he clearly shares the open-minded liberalism of his young fans. The fact he's celebrated it with many of their parents present has made that all the more powerful.

These moments of on-stage activism have become increasingly prevalent as young fans look to musicians to reflect their views and be a champion for the social causes of their generation. This shift in expectations means that silence on the news of the day is read at best as ignorance and at worst as complicity. At Glastonbury this year, artists including Kendrick Lamar and Olivia Rodrigo loudly aligned themselves with the pro-choice movement when performing; calling out Putin and standing with Ukraine has been a recurrent theme at concerts since Russia's invasion. In 2022, it's hard to believe that just over five years ago Taylor Swift kept tight-lipped about her views on Donald Trump in the lead up to the 2016 election, fearing speaking out could alienate some of her fanbase.

For Styles, who graced the cover of Vogue in a dress, and has launched his own line of iridescent male-polish, championing progressive ideas about identity is hardly a surprising move. Here is a star whose boundary-pushing style and transgressive gender expression has earned him comparisons to the likes of Prince and David Bowie, but like those pioneers before him his chameleonic style has also allowed him to be a blank canvas that fans can project ideas onto. Thanks to stylist Harry Lambert and an array of Gucci garms, his tour wardrobe has been a fantastical mishmash of oversized proportions and trippy patterns, giving his shows a wild, permissive atmosphere perfect for the messages he is trying to communicate.

A cynic might ask whether Harry Styles, or indeed any pop star, proclaiming their beliefs in front of a rapt audience is genuinely meaningful, but watching the reaction to his actions in the crowds has been undeniably powerful. The young people forming conga lines and arriving in a mass of pink cowboy hats and feather boas have seen many of the values and causes they care about ridiculed and questioned in the wider culture for years. Love on Tour has been a rebuttal to all that: proof that acceptance and tolerance are not hollow ideals, and a welcome reminder that sometimes the best way to kill your critics is with kindness.

via GQ Magazine. (28 July 2022)

#harry styles #harry update #gq magazine #article #july 2022

[beardedmrbean]

PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona is waving goodbye to a Civil War-era ban of nearly all abortions as a repeal bill reaches the desk of Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.

Hobbs says the repeal, scheduled for signing on Thursday, is just the beginning of a fight to protect reproductive healthcare in Arizona. But the repeal may not take effect until 90 days after the end of the legislative session, in June or July. Abortion rights advocates hope a court will step in to prevent that outcome.

The effort to repeal the ban won final legislative approval Wednesday in a 16-14 vote of the Senate, as two GOP lawmakers joined with Democrats.

The vote extended for hours as senators described their motivations in personal, emotional and even biblical terms — including graphic descriptions of abortion procedures and amplified audio recordings of a fetal heartbeat, along with warnings against the dangers of “legislating religious beliefs.”

At the same time Wednesday, supporters of a South Dakota abortion rights initiative submitted far more signatures than required to make the ballot this fall, while in Florida a ban took effect against most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, before many women even know they are pregnant.

Democratic Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, an opponent of the near-total abortion ban, has said the earliest the dormant abortion-ban law could be enforced is June 27, though she has asked the state’s highest court to block enforcement until sometime in late July. But the anti-abortion group defending the ban, Alliance Defending Freedom, maintains county prosecutors can begin enforcing it once the Supreme Court’s decision becomes final, which hasn’t yet occurred.

The near-total ban, which predates Arizona’s statehood, permits abortions only to save the patient’s life and provides no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest. In a ruling last month, the Arizona Supreme Court suggested doctors could be prosecuted under the law first approved in 1864, which carries a sentence of two to five years in prison for anyone who assists in an abortion.

A repeal means that a 2022 statute banning the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy would become Arizona’s prevailing abortion law.

Physician Ronald Yunis, a Phoenix-based obstetrician gynecologist who also provides abortions, called the repeal a positive development for women who might otherwise leave Arizona for medical care.

“This is good for ensuring that ensuring that women won’t have to travel to other states just to get the health care they need,” Yunis said. “I was not too concerned because I have a lot of confidence in our governor and attorney general. I’m certain they will continue finding ways to protect women.”

Arizona is one of a handful of battleground states that will decide the next president. Former President Donald Trump, who has warned that the issue could lead to Republican losses, has avoided endorsing a national abortion ban but said he’s proud to have appointed the Supreme Court justices who allowed states to outlaw it.

President Joe Biden’s campaign team believes anger over the fall of Roe v. Wade gives them a political advantage in battleground states like Arizona, while the issue has divided Republican leaders.

Abortion-ban advocates in the Senate on Wednesday gallery jeered and interrupted state Republican state Sen. Shawnna Bolick as she explained her vote in favor of repeal, joining with Democrats. Bolick is married to state Supreme Court Justice Clint Bolick, who voted in April to allow a 1864 law on abortion to be enforced again. He confronts a retention election in November.

The 19th century law had been blocked since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion nationwide.

After Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, then-Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, persuaded a state judge that the 1864 ban could be enforced. Still, the law hasn’t actually been enforced while the case was making its way through the courts.

Planned Parenthood Arizona filed a motion Wednesday afternoon that asks the state Supreme Court to prevent a pause in abortion services until the Legislature’s repeal takes effect.

Advocates are collecting signatures for a ballot measure allowing abortions until a fetus could survive outside the womb, typically around 24 weeks, with exceptions — to save the parent’s life, or to protect her physical or mental health.

Republican lawmakers, in turn, are considering putting one or more competing abortion proposals on the November ballot.

#nunyas news

[lunarianbeams]

I'M TIRED AND ANGRY BUT SOMEBODY SHOULD BE

National Network of Abortion Funds

ACLU article: What's Next for Abortion Rights

photos have alt text and image id under the cut

image one: The first image states "On June 24th, 2022 The Supreme Court reversed nearly 50 years of precedent and overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the federal constitutional right to abortion." The second image states "Half of the states are expected to ban abortion. Some will prosecute those who seek abortion or aid those in seeking abortion." The third image states "This catastrophic attack on bodily autonomy will only encourage more dangerous legislation, impacting vulnerable communities the most."

image two: The first image states "Abortion is one of the safest medical procedures performed today, more than 99 percent safe in fact." The second image states "Nearly 8 in 10 Americans oppose overturning Roe v. Wade" The third image states "Black women suffer from maternal mortality at rates three times higher than white women."

image two: The first image states "Abortion is one of the safest medical procedures performed today, more than 99 percent safe in fact." The second image states "Nearly 8 in 10 Americans oppose overturning Roe v. Wade" The third image states "Black women suffer from maternal mortality at rates three times higher than white women."

image three: The first image states "So far this year, 1,991 total provisions related to sexual and reproductive health and rights have been introduced across 46 states." The second image states "In Oklahoma and Texas, abortion is banned at six weeks, before many know they're pregnant." The third image states "There are now 16 states where 95% of counties do no have an abortion clinic."

image four: The first image states "89 percent of US counties don't have an abortion provider". The second image states "Six out of every 10 women who have abortions are already mothers." The third image states "Nearly 1 in 3 women will have an abortion in their lifetime."

image five: The first image states "Don't wait for revolutionaries to change the world. Be the revolutionaries." The second image states "No one is coming to do the work for us." The third image states in all capital letters "The work is ours and we have to do it now."

end id /

#if anyone has suggestions/edits for image id lemme know! #reproductive rights #abortion #roe v wade #human rights #supreme court #june 24 2022 #halsey #love and power tour #image described #image desc in alt text #nightmare visuals #activism #abortion funds #aclu #nightmare by halsey #iichliwp #protests #healthcare

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Second gentleman Douglas Emhoff will convene a panel in Atlanta on Tuesday focused on the role men can play in advocating for more access to abortion rights, according to sources familiar with the plans.

The event, timed to mark the five-year anniversary of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signing Georgia’s six-week ban on most abortions into law, is expected to feature health care providers, reproductive rights activists, local leaders and students.

Emhoff plans to stress the importance of men supporting abortion rights and using their voices to push to expand women’s ability to get the procedure, the sources said. The audience is expected to be made up primarily of men and will include some students from Morehouse College.

The panel will be held in collaboration with Men4Choice, a group that organizes and trains men to fight for abortion access and mobilizes them to encourage other men to support their cause, the sources said. Men4Choice has also organized engagements with the second gentleman across the country, including in Florida, Arizona and North Carolina.

On Tuesday, Emhoff, who has accompanied Vice President Kamala Harris during some of the more than 80 events she has held on reproductive freedom since Roe v. Wade was overturned, will aim to send a message to men that they must help push back against state abortion restrictions and support candidates who will expand abortion access, the sources said.

The panelists for the event include Carol McDonald, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Southeast; Davante Jennings, a state organizer for Unite Reproductive and Gender Equity; and Shawana Moore, a women’s health nurse practitioner.

The event will also feature Cecil Price III, a Morehouse University student and member of Men4Choice who is working to organize other men to become more active in the abortion rights movement.

As part of the day, Khadeen Ellis, a television host and actor, will also speak about her pregnancy and motherhood experiences and the particular challenges Black women face during childbirth.

The sources said before the event, Emhoff will also meet with Black small-business owners and visit a local business, where he will seek to call attention to a new tour the vice president recently kicked off aimed at highlighting the need to create economic opportunities.

Abortion has become a top issue this election year, with both President Joe Biden and Harris often attacking former President Donald Trump and Republicans on the topic. Harris, who has emerged as one of the administration’s most prominent voices on abortion, has held abortion-related events in at least 20 states, including a speech she gave in Jacksonville, Florida, on Wednesday just as that state’s new six-week ban on most abortions went into effect.

#us politics #news #nbc news #2024 #2024 elections #Douglas Emhoff #vice president kamala harris #abortion #abortion bans #reproductive rights #reproductive justice #reproductive health #Men4Choice #Carol McDonald #Davante Jennings #Shawana Moore #planned parenthood #Unite Reproductive and Gender Equity #Cecil Price III #Morehouse University #Khadeen Ellis #biden administration #Democrats

[tomorrowusa]

Sandra Day O'Connor died Friday at the age of 93. She was the first woman to serve on the US Supreme Court. Although she was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, her approach was more centrist than his and she was often the swing vote on the court.

After her retirement from SCOTUS in 2006, President George W. Bush appointed the hard right Samuel Alito to replace O'Connor. In 2022 Alito was the driving force behind the dismantling of Roe v. Wade.

Justice O’Connor joined the controlling opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 decision that, to the surprise of many, reaffirmed the core of the constitutional right to abortion established in 1973 in Roe v. Wade. To overrule Roe “under fire in the absence of the most compelling reason to re-examine a watershed decision,” she wrote in a joint opinion with Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and David H. Souter, “would subvert the court’s legitimacy beyond any serious question.” Last year, the court did overrule Roe, casting aside Justice O’Connor’s concern for precedent and the court’s public standing. In his majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Justice Alito wrote that Roe and Casey had “enflamed debate and deepened division.” Justice O’Connor also wrote the majority opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger, a 2003 decision upholding race-conscious admissions decisions at public universities, suggesting that they would not longer be needed in a quarter-century. In striking down affirmative action programs in higher education in June, the Supreme Court beat her deadline by five years. [ ... ] Justice O’Connor was also an author of a key campaign finance opinion, McConnell v. Federal Election Commission in 2003. A few years after Justice Alito replaced her, the Supreme Court, by a 5-to-4 vote in 2010, overruled a central portion of that decision in the Citizens United case.nge? A few days later, at a law school conference, Justice O’Connor reflected on the development. “Gosh,” she said, “I step away for a couple of years and there’s no telling what’s going to happen.” [ ... ] She held the crucial vote in many of the court’s most polarizing cases, and her vision shaped American life for her quarter century on the court. Political scientists stood in awe at the power she wielded. “On virtually all conceptual and empirical definitions, O’Connor is the court’s center — the median, the key, the critical and the swing justice,” Andrew D. Martin, Kevin M. Quinn and Lee Epstein and two colleagues wrote in a study published in 2005 in The North Carolina Law Review shortly before Justice O’Connor’s retirement.

Let this be a reminder that the direction of the Supreme Court depends on the President who appoints its members and the Senate which confirms them.

While we may not have warm and fuzzy feelings about Ronald Reagan, two of his three† appointments to SCOTUS were centrists. Of the six current justices appointed to the court by Republican presidents, one is a conservative and the other five are hardline reactionaries.

When voting for president or senator, we are indirectly also voting for SCOTUS justices who could be on the court for decades. We ought to keep that in mind when we hear people suggesting that we should cast "protest votes" for impotent third parties which have no chance of getting elected.

Remember that no 2024 Republican presidential candidate will nominate to the court somebody as relatively moderate as Sandra Day O'Connor.

† I count Rehnquist, who Reagan elevated from Associate to Chief Justice, as a Nixon appointee.

#sandra day o'connor #us supreme court #scotus #roe v. wade #the sanctity of reproductive freedom #samuel alito #republicans #election 2024

[wartakes]

When Domestic Politics Become a National Security Concern (OLD ESSAY)

This essay was originally posted on June 29th, 2022 - not long after the verdict overturning Roe v. Wade was handed down by the Supreme Court.

Basically, this was me commenting on how I increasingly see crossover between the world I operate in (national security, defense, etc.) and the domestic political environment in the United States - which is needless to say, NOT A GOOD THING.

(Full essay below the cut).

I hope for a lot of things these days. I hope for better things for myself, for my friends and family and loved ones, for people all over the world at large.

But more than anything, I really just wish we could stop having history for just a day or two.

Like, fucking really. Can it just take a smoke break? I’d really like to write one of these about something else for a change instead of whatever event is sucking my soul out that month and it feels like there’s been even more of that already this year than the last couple years combined.

The big event most recently of course was the U.S. Supreme Court overturning its own prior decision on Roe vs. Wade, stripping nationwide abortion rights and immediately putting the lives of countless women at risk. As if this wasn’t bad enough in its own right, it seems that there are troubling signs on the horizon for what the majority-Republican appointee court has its sights on next when it comes to stripping away rights that many of us thought were settled at this point. Needless to say, it’s been an utterly demoralizing week for myself and just about everyone I know.

Now, you may be asking yourself: “KomodoDad, why are you writing about this here? Aren’t you a war guy? Why are you going on about domestic politics?” First of all: if you really are unironically asking that, go fuck yourself, I’ll write about what I want to. Second: all of this is fast becoming a national security issue and that’s really bad and we should all be concerned (that is, those of us who haven’t already been concerned for a long time now).

I started thinking about this on the friday that the Roe decision was passed down and it festered in my head even more over the weekend that followed. I could see it not only in the reaction of victorious right-wing forces celebrating their accomplishment and lashing out further at their opponents, or in the various police crackdowns on people rightfully showing their displeasure at this rollback of bodily autonomy. I also saw it just in the reactions of people I know, a great many of them struggling to keep from saying something that would get them banned off of social media or worse. Even more than I saw during the George Floyd protests of 2020, I’ve seen this bubbling rage coming to the surface in so many people who A.) haven’t been prone to outrage before; and B.) aren’t all necessarily leftists or as far left as some of us are online.

I look at the pattern we’re locked in, with a powerful and vocal right-wing minority continuously ramming through its agenda even when the majority of Americans oppose it, and that majority of people getting more and more frustrated when nothing seems to be done to try and roll it back, and I suddenly get very concerned. I get concerned because I am a national security weirdo, and when I look at what’s going on now and I look at what’s been going on the past five, ten, twenty years, I start to see patterns that if I noticed them in a foreign country I’d be going “uh oh, that doesn’t bode well for them.” Basically, it feels like more and more of our domestic political issues are turning into national security concerns due to their intractability and that’s not good.

I want to stress before I go any deeper that I’m going to try and not make this a doomer piece. I speak every other minute about how I abhor doomerism in all its forms and that’s the last feeling I want to encourage with my writing. But I do want this essay to be something that at least makes you feel concerned if you weren’t already and motivate you to action. I’ve actually avoided writing about this topic for a while to be perfectly honest with you. I’ve seen more than a few articles and several recent books about the possibility of Civil War II and by and large I’ve felt they’ve been scare pieces trying to make a quick fear buck. While I’ve admittedly still had a low-level concern about that sort of thing, it’s been just that: low. I hadn’t yet felt a need to address it. But after this past week, I think I’ve finally felt like it’s necessary to talk about the risk of civil conflict for everyone’s sake because I feel shit like what’s happened with Roe is only going to keep coming hotter and heavier and we need to understand what we’re dealing with if we’re going to do anything about it.

Worrying Signs

As usual, I feel the need to define some terms and explain some of my concepts a bit more. If I casually say “everything is national security now” with no context, that can be taken a lot of ways. After all, national security and national defense do touch upon or are connected to multiple corners of our economy and day to day lives, even if we don’t always see it. When I say “everything is national security now” what I mean is that more and more political issues are rising to the level of contention or intractability where they carry with them a threat of widespread violence – be that violence against civilians, the state, or whatever or whoever else. They start to rise to the level that they’re disrupting or preventing the carrying out “good governance” (or whatever might pass for it) and all the things we might consider part and parcel of being a “normal”, peaceful, functional country. Things as simple as being to go to the grocery store or go to school or wherever without the threat of getting merc’d being off the scale. They rise to that level because their intractability prevents any kind of solution through existing non-violent channels for whatever reason – such as those channels being flawed and broken, or just being plain non-existent in some cases.

This is nothing new (unfortunately). We’ve seen this before to varying degrees. The most notable and destructive instance of this in American history is of course the original U.S. Civil War, where the issue of slavery became so intractable that it could not be resolved by peaceful means and became a violent conflict when the South took up arms in defense of it (if anyone ever tries to tell you it was about “states’ rights” just ask “states’ rights to what, motherfucker?). Other examples also exist at varying scales and intensity of violence. The Whiskey Rebellion of 1791 against the Federal government and its powers of taxation is one example, which involved a large-scale Federal and state military response but very few killed or injured. There are of course, other examples that don’t quite rise to the level of civil war or outright rebellion from multiple periods of American history, such as violence against activists in the Civil Rights movement. Another pertinent example in light of the Roe vs. Wade decision is the history of attacks – sometimes deadly – on abortion providers in the U.S. (which have consequently skyrocketed over the past year in case you were wondering).

So, yes: certain political issues becoming increasingly unsolvable by peaceful political means and becoming security issues as well as political issues is not new. However, whenever it happens, it should still be cause for concern even if its “mild”, because it signals greater problems afoot. In that vein, if you start getting more and more issues that are becoming security issues all at the same time, it stands to reason you should be even more concerned. That’s why I feel it’s even more cause for worry now due to the fact it feels like more and more issues are all reaching that point simultaneously in recent years.

There’s also the matter of the way in which the issues become intractable or contended, because sometimes it creates the false impression that the problem is no one is “compromising” or finding “middle ground” like “adults” (or at least that’s what braindead columnists in major newspapers are trying to get us to believe). With many of our “controversial” issues today, there often seems like there’s actually a majority of people who are in favor of some kind of progressive change or action. We’ve seen this with gay marriage, abortion rights, gun control, and with multiple other issues that we’re told are “controversial.” The problem is that the minority of those who oppose any positive change on these issues are mostly unwilling to cede any ground what-so-ever; with more and more issues are seen by them as being hills to die on (or kill on). Even mild amounts of change are cause for outrage and screaming bloody murder, as we’ve seen with what it took to pass even lukewarm gun violence legislation in the aftermath of multiple mass shootings this year (and the reactions to said lukewarm legislation from some on the right). Every single political battle becomes one that these reactionaries want to fight to the death over (both figuratively and – increasingly – literally).

And that’s what they are: reactionaries. Don’t let these people fool you into thinking that they’re only “conservatives.” This is not to say that conservatives are necessary “good”, but this just isn’t what they are. A philosophical conservative (on paper) isn’t supposed to necessarily be opposed to all change, but only wants gradual, limited, incremental change (the subtext here for anyone on the left of course, being, that they want that change so that they can “manage” it and maintain power and privileges in the process). But reactionaries want to actively turn the clock back and re-fight past battles that they’ve lost. It’s not just good enough for them to slow down change or even halt change, they want to go back and undo change to fit their own worldview.

The Rachet Effect of Rage

Therein lies another problem, because the deadlock we’re in isn’t really even strictly a deadlock. Movement is certainly possible, but it feels as if the only movement we can achieve lurches us further to the right. You’ve probably heard this described before by people more politics savvy than I am: the idea of the rachet effect; where the design of the political system prevents moving back to the left and only allows movement to the right. It becomes harder and harder to dismiss as you have the Democratic Party – the supposed guardians against the sort of setbacks we’re experiencing (if their campaign literature is to be believed) the party currently in power, failing to do anything to substantively improve our material conditions while continuing to allow the right to drag us further into their corner despite not even supposedly being in power anymore. The Democratic Party seems fundamentally incapable of exercising power once it has notionally achieved it, while the Republican Party has spent the last two to four decades building up power and institutions in such a way that it can continue to wield power even when it is – on paper – still in the opposition.

That brings us to the situation we’re in. Where when we’re not at a standstill, we’re being ratcheted further to the right with various court challenges and other manipulations of the structures of power by the right. Any attempt to move further to the left is blocked or thwarted by the mechanisms developed by the intractable and reactionary right – be it the Republicans or various other far-right groups that have sprung up like mushrooms in the past decade – and aided by the incompetence, unwillingness, or even outright complicity of the liberal establishment. This is a situation that has left many – myself included – feeling disenfranchised and powerless to act on our own or to convince those in power to act positively.

You may not remember, but I’ve written about this sort of thing before in a different context, when I discussed insurgency and counterinsurgency and our failings in understanding it. Insurgencies, rebellions, civil wars – all the various kinds of intrastate violence, start when domestic political grievances become unresolvable by peaceful means. Eventually, at least some of those who are advocating those grievances – after it’s become clear they have no way of affecting change or even negotiating for the possibility of change under the current systems – feel that they are forced to take up arms and use violence in order to do so.  

Maybe now, if you weren’t already concerned with the buildup of impotent rage many in this country are feeling at the same time that those on the right seem more than willing to resort to violence to drag us back in time and keep us there, you might start to understand why I am.

As the right dig in deeper with their extreme stances, you have the opposing current of everyone else who want change slamming up against them. While the right stands as a bulwark against change while shoving everyone else backwards, the frustration and the rage of everyone else builds. What happens when you have more and more people who aren’t somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan increasingly feel they have no other way to try and stop it or to improve things the way the system is currently constituted? What happens when they feel voting does nothing, that politicians aren’t willing to engage with them, and where it feels like any other response ends up with them being beaten and tear gassed? You can fill in the blanks. It’s not good.

All is Not Lost

If you know me, you know I don’t like treating the future as written in stone. Time is not, in fact, a flat circle. We do all still have agency. We can still affect things in the world around us. We are not absolutely doomed to a certain large-scale conflagration of civil violence and destruction along with all manner of other misery. We are not completely powerless to stop events. There are reasons for hope. But if things don’t change in a big way, if enough people don’t act and soon, we’re definitely on the road to something bad.

I have no idea what that something could potentially be and no one else can be absolutely sure either – so if anyone else tries to give you any prediction other than a series of plausible possibilities, take it with a large grain of salt. I don’t want to get too deeply into those because I don’t want to scare or depress you any more than you absolutely need to be right now. All I will say is it could be anywhere from something as high-key and violent as the Syrian Civil War, to something more on the level of Italy’s “Years of Lead” or the Northern Irish “Troubles.” A lot of that really depends on what happens more in the years to come/years preceding any hypothetical conflict (which again, is not certain to occur). But even if only the “less bad” types of civil conflict break out, it would still be horrific for large swathes of society and the world at large. We shouldn’t want any of that in any shape or form.

Again, I try not to be alarmist or doomsaying – the exact opposite, in fact. What I’m telling you today is not meant to fill you with dread for the sake of dread; it is not meant to black pill you or turn you into a nihilist or a doomer. What I want to do is simply drive home the seriousness of the times we’re in – to reinforce what the last few years have taught us: that this is not just a game, or a temporary phase that will eventually fizzle out on its own. We are, in fact, in a real crisis. We are in a Wikipedia article that has not been written yet – or exists and is going to be retitled sometime in the near-future. How that article will read in the future is on all of us. This is meant to be a drive to action to try and improve this situation and prevent it from spiraling further out of control, not an attempt to get fear clicks and paralyze you with foreboding. We need to channel our fear, our anger, our frustration; channel it into meaningful action.  

Part of me isn’t entirely convinced we’re not already well into the early stages of what might be some kind of civil conflict. That with all the mass shootings, street brawls, and other violence, we may already be in some kind of “Years of Lead” or “Troubles” or Weimar Republic-esque disorder. If that’s the case, that only reinforces the call to action to make sure that the conflict we may or may not already be in does not progress to more destructive phases – not only destructive for us as people living in this country, but destructive for the effects it would undoubtedly have on the entire world due to the centrality of the United States in its day-to-day affairs. We owe it to not just ourselves, but to all people everywhere out of solidarity.

What are some of the things we can do now? A lot of the things we need to do are things people have already been telling us to do and that we need to double down and commit more to as we move ahead. Getting to know your neighbors and your community and participating in mutual aid; joining, starting, and supporting progressive organizations be they labor unions, advocacy groups for specific topics or general change, or organizations that help people get resources that they may not be able to usually access; participating in direct action and pressure campaigns when necessary; also, while we’ve learned that voting alone doesn’t bring about change, I’d still say that it’s something we cannot ignore as a too (I’m not going to give you an electoralism lecture because I don’t buy into that myself, but voting isn’t a useless gesture and is critical to prevent more backsliding, with some of the progressive victories we’ve seen this year being proof of that).

I know that last paragraph is a very generalized, non-specific list of suggestions. In my defense, at the end of the day, I am still a national security and international relations professional, not a domestic political animal. There are people out there you can and will give you more specific and helpful advice on this front that I can. I just want to make sure that you’re taking home that there is a real urgency to seek out said advice and guidance and act on it. All is not lost, do not despair; but know that the pressure is real and the need for action is real. I leave you with this: all of our lives have intrinsic value; when something has value, you fight to defend it.

Stay safe out there and keep on keeping on.

#essay #War Takes #War Takes essay #Donald Trump #socialism #leftism #democratic socialism #far-right #fascism #terrorism #domestic terrorism #insurrection #internal conflict #civil war #war #roe vs. wade #roe v. wade #roe versus wade #ratchet effect #authoritarianism #anti authoritarian

[aroundtheworldiej]

#MeToo: What changes in our society?

by Marie Coppo

(Copyrights: commons.wikimedia.org)

It’s been five years this month, since the #MeToo movement has been created. It was launched in 2007 by Tarana Burke, an Afro American social worker. Her purpose was to denounce sexual harassment and violence against woman. How does this movement impact society?

Millions of people speak out their truth on social media against sexual abuse, harassment and misconduct. It never happened before 2017, violence against women was not something that people talked about. During this time, many powerful figures have been pointed out for abusing those who either work or wanted to work in the entertainment industry. The former most influent and powerful men in Hollywood, Harvey Weinstein, has been accused by 90 women to committed rape and sexual harassment in hotels in Beverly Hills between 2004 and 2013. His trial started a week ago, in California.

At the end of the same year, this movement reached French people, and they joined the movement creating their own hashtag: #BalanceTonPorc. It is the French journalist, Sandra Muller who tweeted first the hashtag : « #BalanceTonPorc !! toi aussi raconte en donnant le nom et les détails d'un harcèlement sexuel que tu as connu dans ton boulot. Je vous attends.”, the American actress Alyssa Milano translated it: « If you've been sexually harassed or assaulted write 'me too' as a reply to this tweet ». These tweets provoked a shockwave in the whole world, it was so huge that it changed the perspective of lots of people who did not realise how big the problem was. It was not random; millions of victims would share their story.

Indeed, as a movement that was supposed to concern Hollywood, it is safe to say that this has gone far beyond that. It opened a whole new debate. People began to talk about the violence that can be anywhere and against everyone in every sphere of our society. To give numbers, according to NousToutes organisation in France, 0,6% of rapists are condemned, 80% of the domestic violence cases are closed and no further actions are taken, 65% of victims femicide had reported to the police. Me Too has today, reached the most suffocating of these oppressions: incest. The numbers are also revealing that one in ten children are victims of incest.

Several organisations in France and in the USA, like “Osez le Féminisme” or “Time’s Up” are fighting everyday by educating young people in school, teaching them respect and equality. They set up meetings to organise marches and protestations during the year. They also support victims in their cases and trials. Unfortunately, since last summer the situation seems to be moving backwards: the Supreme Court has overturned Roe V. Wade, the historic statement that gave women the right to dispose of their bodies, the right to choose for their life. Today, an American woman who lives in Kansas must travel another country or state to get an abortion.

Furthermore, the mediatic treatment Amber Heard received during her trial against her former-husband Johnny Depp shows that there is still work to do on these questions. When the verdict was revealed, the TV show host Meghan McCain even tweeted: “MeToo is dead”. What if it was the moment for a brand-new movement to come out?

(Copyrights: commons.wikimedia.org)

Out last article ⬇️

Malcolm X

#metoo

[kp777]

By Mike Allen, Zachary Basu

Axios

April 7, 2023

If Republicans step back and look beyond the legal and social-media spectacle of Donald J. Trump, they'll see screaming political sirens everywhere they gaze.

Why it matters: The GOP's political trouble has been unfolding slowly but unmistakably, starting even before Trump's loss to Joe Biden in 2020.

First, the 2018 House elections were a disaster for Republicans: Democrats had a net gain of 40 seats to take over the House — their largest gain since the post-Watergate election of 1974.

Then Trump lost the presidency.

Next, Republicans blew two runoff elections in Georgia and lost control of the U.S. Senate. The runoffs took place a day before Trump backers stormed the Capitol.

Then, Republicans won the legal fight over abortion as Trump-appointed justices helped to ensure the reversal of Roe v. Wade. But the GOP lost a series of political battles over it afterward — a reflection of polls indicating that most Americans support abortion rights. GOP-led state legislatures have shown no signs of slowing their push to enact stricter abortion bans, suggesting continuing political backlash.

Republicans put high-profile election deniers on the 2022 midterm ballot in key state and federal races — only to see several lose winnable elections.

Republicans blew a chance to control the Senate by nominating too many hard-to-elect-in-a-swing-state Trump facsimiles. Their hopes of a big House majority were erased for the same reason, creating constant headaches for new Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Just this week, progressive Democrats triumphed in two of this year's most consequential elections. Brandon Johnson, a teachers' union organizer, was elected Chicago mayor. In swing state Wisconsin, Democrat-backed Janet Protasiewicz flipped the state Supreme Court to liberals in a landslide, after leaning into her support for abortion rights.

Senate Republicans have been gifted a historically favorable 2024 map — but hard-right candidates who appeal to the GOP base again threaten to inject uncertainty into at least five winnable races.

Trump is driving an agenda dominated by vengeance and victimhood, diverting Republicans from the inflation- and crime-centered messages that helped them in the midterms.

Reality check: Trump, if anything, is stronger and more likely to win the GOP nomination than he was after the November midterms.

Republicans in Congress have rallied to Trump's defense since his indictment.

By the numbers: For all his growing popularity among Republicans, Trump remains wildly unpopular nationally.

Polls show Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — who trails Trump by an average of 26 points among Republicans — would fare far better than Trump in a matchup against President Biden.

Biden's approval rating has hovered around 42%, a dismal figure — but still better than Trump's.

The bottom line: Put polls aside. How likely does it seem that Trump will do better with persuadable voters than his 2020 loss when you toss Jan. 6, a 34-count Manhattan indictment and possible federal indictments into the mix?

#republican party #republicans #reality check

[dezz111]

It’s Murder Before Birth, Everything After is Statistic

“All day, every day, therapist, mother, maid, nymph, then a virgin, nurse, then a servant. Just an appendage, live to attend him so that he never lifts a finger. Twenty-four-seven baby machine, so he can live out his picket fence dreams. It's not an act of love if you make her. You make me do too much labour…

(Paloma)

”

     On March 23rd, Paris Paloma released a song that had taken the women of TikTok by storm. It was everything we as women wanted to say to the patriarchy. We, the women (or anyone in possession of a uterus) have the oh-so-wonderful “duty” of bearing the next generation.  Whether by choice or by force. With the overturning of Roe V Wade last year, our rights seem to be doing a moonwalk into medieval times. The Supreme Court claimed to be Pro-Life and was backed by thousands of self-righteous people who most definitely don't want to adopt your baby like the hypotheticals profess. All they really cared to do was “protect their houses, protect their friends, protect their wallets. But women is where it ends…(Romeo).” Because they're not the ones losing nine months of their autonomy with a minimum sentence of 18 years if they decide to keep little Timmy out of some guilt-ridden form of responsibility. The decision to actually ban abortions was left up to each individual state, because God forbid they take full responsibility for their actions. Which has been anything but fine and dandy, especially if you live in Texas. Or the South in general, really. But lo and behold, a white man did what white men do best and swung his proverbial dick named Audacity. And of course, he's from Texas.

(Sorry Sandy, no defending Texas now.)

   Enter Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, the cherry-picked pick-me of the Texan government. Cocksmark issued a preliminary ruling invalidating the Food and Drug Administration’s 23-year-old approval of the abortion pill mifepristone. Mifepristone is a drug best known for being the safest option for abortions, something lawmakers have an issue with unless the hot secretary needs one. It also has been studied alongside cancers, the drug has proven effective in blocking progesterone, a hormone that helps some cancers grow (Koide). But that’s just cancer, something that kills living children and their parents. No, what Cocksmark is worried about happens before the brain has even developed. Or hasn’t developed. Or is even viable? It really just comes down to if the egg was ever fertilized. It doesn't matter if it's an ectopic pregnancy, your womb goes septic or your baby is born without a skull. Not even the permanent loss of function for your fallopian tube (which you kinda need to make a baby) isn’t enough (Zernike).

Now this drug has been around for as long as I’ve been alive and if it ain't broke, why change it? Because. That's simply it. Because. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. They change it because they can. For men who are quickly finding their privilege coming into question and their egos in check, there's a level of control they feel they must impose as their testosterone levels drop and the blue pill waits for them in the back. There’s an archaic part of their brain that never made it out of the sixties that desires to see the world below their feet and pesky things like reproductive rights make it hard to keep Barbara at home pregnant with the kids. There’s a status quo they wish to maintain built upon a weaponized belief system. 

But that’s just speculation.

What’s not speculation is that while they say we can’t “kill our innocent kids”, someone else definitely will. Because I’m writing this on April 16, 2023, and just yesterday there were 9 mass shootings in the United States of America. On April 10th, there was a mass shooting in Louisville, Kentucky that killed five people and left four injured. Out of all the mass shootings I could have chosen, this one, in particular, is special. Because this shooting marked the 146th mass shooting in 100 days. Now, I’m really bad at math. But I'm pretty sure that means that there were more mass shootings than days in the year. Six days later and we are at 163 mass shootings. That means in less than a week, we’ve had 17 mass shootings (Gun Violence Archive). 

Since this whole gun control thing seems to be a joke, let's tally up the score:  

Mass Shootings: 163

Mass Murders: 15

Children (Ages 0-11)

Killed: 75

Injured: 172

Teens (ages 12-17) 

Killed: 434

Injured: 1,503

Defensive Uses: 306

Suicide: 6,996

Total Injuries: 9,506

Total Deaths: 12,246

   There has been a grand total of 12,246 deaths due to gun violence this year. And what do we win?! A Gucci belt to go with our third-world title! (Cue thunderous applause.) Because we have to be winning at something if there’s no change.

Gasp!

I finally get it. With this younger generation not wanting to bring children into a world that gives them nothing but trauma, the government will just force them to do it. Because who will buy more guns for us to shoot each other with if no one replaces the kids we kill? It's the Circle of Life! Hakuna Matta, your life is worth less than a wartime law unless you're still in the womb.

Or you're a dog. Then, you can have an abortion.

                                                    Works Cited

Gay, R. (2023, April 11). The Audacious Roundup. The Audacious Roundup - by Roxane

Gay.RetrievedApril13,2023,from https://audacity.substack.com/p/the-audacious

-roundup-806?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=237330&post_id=112139115&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email

Gun violence archive. Gun Violence Archive. (n.d.). Retrieved April 16, 2023, from

https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting

Koide, S. S. (n.d.). Mifepristone. auxiliary therapeutic use in cancer and related disorders. 

The Journal of reproductive medicine. Retrieved April 13, 2023, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9693404/

Paloma, P. (2023, March 23). Labour. YouTube. Retrieved April 13, 2023, from 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvU4xWsN7-A&ab_channel=ParisPaloma

Romeo, R. (2022, July 6). Fuck the Supreme Court (rant song). YouTube. Retrieved April 

13,2023,fromhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z55f_B7QbqE&ab_channel=rioromeo

Williams, K., Holpuch, A., & Robertson, C. (2023, April 10). Gunman kills 5 co-workers at 

Louisville Bank on Livestream, police say. The New York Times. Retrieved April 14,2023,from https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/10/us/louisville-kentucky-shooting

.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes

Zernike, K. (2023, March 7). Five Women Sue Texas Over the State’s Abortion Ban. The 

NewYorkTimes.RetrievedApril14,2023,from https://www.nytimes.com

/2023/03/06/us/texas-abortion-ban-suit.html 

#roe versus wade #gun control #gun violence #abortion

[coochiequeens]

(CNN)For many Black women, the reversal of Roe v. Wade last month not only stripped them of bodily autonomy, but created another barrier to economic security and choosing the course of their future. 

For 49 years, women have had the right to terminate a pregnancy without needing to justify it, giving some a chance to pursue their educational goals, career aspirations and start families when they were in stable situations. 

This has especially benefited Black women who continue to fight for an equal place in the US. 

Black women are three times more likely than White women to die of pregnancy-related complications; encounter racism from health care providers at higher rates; face unequal pay; and are more likely than their White counterparts to lack health insurance. 

Now advocates say millions will lose access to abortion care because their state has restricted it and they can't afford to travel for the procedure. 

CNN spoke with five Black women about their decision to get an abortion in the past and why they say the fall of Roe v. Wade could have devastating consequences.

Miriah Mark was 15 weeks pregnant last summer when she made the difficult decision to have an abortion. 

Mark, 31, said her partner had walked out of her life and she wasn't making enough money at her record label job to support a baby. The cost to rent a two-bedroom apartment in Chicago and the rising cost of childcare, Mark said, were not affordable. 

It took her a month from finding out she was pregnant to decide that she wanted an abortion. 

Mark said she had been raised by a single Black mother who worked multiple jobs, struggled to make ends meet and relied on grandparents to help care for Mark. She didn't want to repeat that cycle. 

"I don't want to raise a child in a world that doesn't have every advantage," Mark said. "I know what it's like to see children growing up in poverty. I know what it's like to be a young Black girl not having a father, or the mom not being able to be home because they have to work. It was very scary to think about all of that." 

Now, Mark said she has a chance to start her family when she's ready. She can get married and meet her educational and career goals before bringing a child into the world. 

She worries, however, that with the reversal of Roe v. Wade, other Black women will either be forced to have children or resort to unsafe, illegal abortion procedures. 

This could potentially worsen the outcomes for Black women, Mark said, who already face disparities with health care and pay. 

"It's sad and it's scary because pretty much we are going backwards historically and it makes you feel like you're going back to a time where women didn't have rights or women couldn't vote," Mark said of the Supreme Court decision. "It lets you know that we are going in the wrong direction."

When Josephine Kalipeni found out she was pregnant sophomore year of college, she said her whole world came crashing down. 

Kalipeni, who immigrated to the United States from Malawi at the age of 8, said she was trying to get out of an abusive relationship and she knew that completing her education was key to achieving economic security. She was working side jobs to pay for her classes and books while she studied sociology and political science. 

"Having a kid at such a young age while in college... I hadn't seen anyone do it," Kalipeni said. "I hadn't been surrounded by a lot of single mothers who were making education and motherhood work. I knew my parents would be disappointed. It was such a bad and heavy situation for me."

To make matters worse, Kalipeni said she was hospitalized at two months with an ectopic pregnancy that had ruptured. An ectopic pregnancy happens when a fertilized egg grows outside a woman's uterus. The risks are internal bleeding, infection and even death.

She spoke with a doctor and they ultimately aborted her pregnancy. However, there are growing concerns in the medical community about how health care providers can treat an ectopic pregnancy with the Supreme Court ruling.

Kalipeni went on to become a social worker and is now the executive director of Family Values @Work. She vowed to continue advocating for women, mobilizing voters and she's urging lawmakers to protect women's rights. 

Kalipeni said it's saddening to know that many Black and brown women with high risk pregnancies, financial insecurity and abusive partners won't have the abortion access she had. 

"I am so angry," Kalipeni said. "And it's that mad, tearful anger. Because it just feels like there is a constant need to justify the humanity of being a Black woman."

Alana Edmondson was 21 years old and working a low wage retail job in Seattle to pay her way through community college when she found out she was pregnant. Edmondson said she knew having a child would make it harder to finish college -- she was already struggling to pay tuition and had suspended her studies several times. Edmondson also had bigger dreams. She wanted to some day go to Yale University and earn her Phd. 

"It was already very, very hard and there were already enough obstacles in the way of me achieving what I wanted to achieve" Edmondson said. "It seemed like adding a pregnancy and a child to that mix would just make it harder, and why would I want to do that to myself?"

She and her partner decided to get an abortion. 

Edmondson said the decision allowed her to choose the future she wanted. She finished community college, earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Washington and got accepted into Yale where she is currently in her third year. She said she is one step closer to having a career as a college professor. 

Edmondson said it sickens her to know that Black women in many parts of the country won't have access to abortion care. Women with forced pregnancies may have to sacrifice their educational and career goals, Edmondson said. The impact, she said, could be Black women repeating the cycle of poverty or generational trauma in their families.

"It feels like they desperately want to trap us," Edmondson said. "It just seems like another way to poison Black communities and to trap Black women. And when you trap Black women you trap the whole family unit." 

Kiah Morris is on the front lines fighting for women to have the right to choose abortion and to choose their future. 

Morris, a former Vermont state legislator, traveled with a group earlier this month to protest the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. 

Morris said despite Vermont being a state that protects abortion rights, she and other demonstrators felt an urgency to rally for women across the country. In addition to abortion rights, Morris has also advocated for low to no cost contraception for all. 

"There's anger, there's frustration, there's righteous rage," said Morris who leads the nonprofit Rights & Democracy. "It's a whole cycle of emotions." 

Morris said she knows firsthand that abortion access can improve the outcome of women's lives. She received an abortion her freshman year of college when she was in an unstable and emotionally abusive relationship. At the time, Morris said she was struggling with her mental health and her boyfriend had expressed he wasn't interested in having a family with her. 

"It was the most difficult decision I've ever made," she said. "I knew I wanted to be in the right mental health space to (have a baby). I wanted to be in the right circumstance. A college freshman is not someone who is ready to raise a child."

Morris said the abortion allowed her to put off starting a family until later in life when she was mature, in a healthy relationship and mentally stable. She now has an 11-year-old son. 

Abortion access, Morris said, gives Black women control over their own bodies and a chance to reach economic prosperity. Since slavery, Black women have suffered the consequences of unplanned pregnancies, she said. Historically, Black women have been conditioned to believe they should carry the pregnancy even if they aren't in an ideal family or financial situation, Morris said. Abortion gave them another option, she said. 

"My concern is that the very little gains we've made are lost," she said. "Black women, we are still invisible, we are still forgotten within all of this."

When Jackie McGranahan learned that Roe v. Wade was overturned, she briefly lingered in her car before going into her Louisville office where she works as a policy strategist for the ACLU of Kentucky. 

"I thought, in this moment, at this time, right now, while I'm in the car, none of it is real," McGranahan said. "Even though I knew what to expect and I knew that it was coming with the leaked opinion, it didn't make it any less traumatic in the moment."

McGranahan later cried with a colleague but quickly got back to work. 

As the organization's first Reproductive Freedom Project field organizer in Kentucky where a judge temporarily blocked the state's abortion ban after the ACLU filed a lawsuit, she's in the center of the storm. McGranahan is tasked with lobbying state lawmakers to advance policies that protect reproductive freedom and LGBTQ+ equality.

In addition to abortion rights, McGranahan champions Black maternal health, paid family leave and "holding the line on birth control." 

The issues have a personal significance to McGranahan who was 22 years old and 10 weeks pregnant when she had an abortion. 

McGranahan, who already had a son and a daughter before she turned 21, said she kept quiet about the abortion for fear of being judged for her decision. 

She said she was struggling to make ends meet as a young mother and lived in a community that was largely against abortion. 

"I was in college, and I worked full time," she said. "My partner was also in school. Our family depended on my financial support...I didn't know how we were going to feed our children." 

McGranahan said her only regret was not sharing her abortion story so she could have been a source of encouragement and strength for others quietly trapped in what she describes as "a cycle of shame." 

"When someone makes this decision, they should have support and respect and be treated with dignity," she said.