Roe v Wade is on deck

[Derec]

To be fair, I don't think sex work should be illegal.

We do not agree on much, but on this we do.

Like people dying from back alley abortions, people die from back alley sex work.

Shutting down CL/BP has certainly made things less safe for sex workers.
And the law that led to it was a bipartisan one with hardly any no votes.

I wonder what administration is more likely to criminalize acts they consider "sexually improper"

When it comes to sex work, both are very bad on it. The only difference is that the feminist left wants to punish the clients while treating every provider as a "victim".

I wonder if it is the one who is going after women and birth control and probably the cases that legalized homosexuality...

It's for these reasons that I generally vote Dem as much as I disagree with them on many issues.
But you can't really say that the Dems are any better than Reps on the issue of consensual sex work. They may approach their prohibitionism from different ideological commitments, but they are both prohibitionist.

 

[Derec]

I am not a right-winger

You heard it here first, folks!

Let's see. I am pro-choice (within reason), pro gay marriage, pro Obamacare, pro stricter gun control (esp. stronger background checks/red flag laws, as well as mandatory liability insurance), don't think taxation is theft, and in fact believe we could use a couple of more tax brackets for higher incomes/capital gains. In what world is that right-wing?

That you see me as a right-winger is only a testament as to how far left you (and Elixir and prideandfall, who called me a "lunatic" but who also deleted his post or had it deleted) are.

 

[blastula]

No wonder pro-choices are losing the culture war

Are they?

 

[blastula]

The court has sprung another leak.

Supreme Court leak investigation heats up as clerks are asked for phone records in unprecedented move

Supreme Court officials are escalating their search for the source of the leaked draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, taking steps to require law clerks to provide cell phone records and sign affidavits, three sources with knowledge of the efforts have told CNN.

www.cnn.com

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

No wonder pro-choices are losing the culture war

Are they?

Great question. I get tired of hearing how we are losing the culture war, when the people in plurality support abortion over a ban.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Bullshit. Give some examples.

Really? What choices do the pro-choice people NOT believe in?

Many so-called pro-choices are against the ability of consenting adults to choose to engage in sex work either as provider or as a client.

And yes, I know you will scream "hobby horse",...

Because it is the umpteenth time you and you alone have brought it up in a thread about abortion rights.

 

[Derec]

Because it is the umpteenth time you and you alone have brought it up in a thread about abortion rights.

But I am not bringing it up arbitrarily. The two issues are linked through common issues of "privacy" and "choice". You cannot really claim to be "pro choice" if you restrict that position only to choices you approve of.
There is also the issue of both anti-abortion and anti-sex work laws being pushed by the same sort of moral panic in the 19th century.
Sex workers/clients could have been great allies to the pro choice movement.
Unfortunately, the pro-choice movement hitched their wagon to the radical feminist movement which detests sex work and is in fact, deeply illiberal.

 

[laughing dog]

Because it is the umpteenth time you and you alone have brought it up in a thread about abortion rights.

But I am not bringing it up arbitrarily. The two issues are linked through common issues of "privacy" and "choice". You cannot really claim to be "pro choice" if you restrict that position only to choices you approve of.

FFS, “pro-chouce” means choice in the vontext if aboryion, not any option in the universe. Your argument is based on tsking a term out of context.

 

[Toni]

I am not a right-winger

You heard it here first, folks!

Let's see. I am pro-choice (within reason), pro gay marriage, pro Obamacare, pro stricter gun control (esp. stronger background checks/red flag laws, as well as mandatory liability insurance), don't think taxation is theft, and in fact believe we could use a couple of more tax brackets for higher incomes/capital gains. In what world is that right-wing?

That you see me as a right-winger is only a testament as to how far left you (and Elixir and prideandfall, who called me a "lunatic" but who also deleted his post or had it deleted) are.

What do you mean by ‘within reason’ with reference to being pro-choice?

I know you see me as a radical feminist, which is funny, but again, I would like to point out my concerns/objections to prostitution center not on two adults willingly engaging in sex with money being exchanged but by the exploitation of sex workers and the unreasonable risks to health and safety they are exposed to. Yes, by exploitation, I do include and am most concerned about coercion although there are other means of exploitation involved. I don’t believe that anyone under the age of 21 should be able to choose to be a prostitute. I also don’t believe anyone should be able to enlist in the military until they are 21. Actually, I think 25 makes more sense for both, in Keri g with brain development and maturity with regards to making rational decisions.

I

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Because it is the umpteenth time you and you alone have brought it up in a thread about abortion rights.

But I am not bringing it up arbitrarily. The two issues are linked through common issues of "privacy" and "choice". You cannot really claim to be "pro choice" if you restrict that position only to choices you approve of.

The right to personal privacy spans from speech to property to the body. It encompasses a lot of territory. But you never seem to talk about any of that. You just bring up prostitution, prostitution, and prostitution... and not because you actually care about the women's right to sex work, but your own self interest. It is so fucking old.

 

[Toni]

I am not a right-winger

You heard it here first, folks!

Let's see. I am pro-choice (within reason), pro gay marriage, pro Obamacare, pro stricter gun control (esp. stronger background checks/red flag laws, as well as mandatory liability insurance), don't think taxation is theft, and in fact believe we could use a couple of more tax brackets for higher incomes/capital gains. In what world is that right-wing?

That you see me as a right-winger is only a testament as to how far left you (and Elixir and prideandfall, who called me a "lunatic" but who also deleted his post or had it deleted) are.

What do you mean by ‘within reason’ with reference to being pro-choice?

I know you see me as a radical feminist, which is funny, but again, I would like to point out my concerns/objections to prostitution center not on two adults willingly engaging in sex with money being exchanged but by the exploitation of sex workers and the unreasonable risks to health and safety they are exposed to. Yes, by exploitation, I do include and am most concerned about coercion although there are other means of exploitation involved. I don’t believe that anyone under the age of 21 should be able to choose to be a prostitute. I also don’t believe anyone should be able to enlist in the military until they are 21. Actually, I think 25 makes more sense for both, in Keri g with brain development and maturity with regards to making rational decisions.

I

*in keeping with brain development….

Late night/small phone with interesting ideas about auto-correct.

 

[lpetrich]

As other states prepare bans, Colorado etches freedom of choice into state law
The Reproductive Health Equity Act (RHEA), signed into law on April 4.

Author Ann Herrold followed the effort to pass that bill. She had to endure what the anti-abortionists had to say about it.

I had the honor of witnessing local government in action from my couch on Zoom, watching silently and listening to the grueling endeavor of passing a potential law through the many hoops and hurdles of the legislature. This had been my first time participating in the process, and I had tremendous respect for the majority of committee members, the bill sponsors, and the many individuals who gave testimony in favor of RHEA. I was in awe of how these people handled themselves with such decorum and grace. I had been skeptical of anyone who does government work, but watching the lengthy process of legislation was a gratifying experience.

To be sure, plenty of individuals made the process harrowing. I had not given much thought to what anti-abortion testifiers would say, but it was exactly what I should have expected. The majority of pro-forced birth testifiers were Christian and did not bat an eye at their own hypocrisy in bringing their faith into the state arena, nor at their hubris as they claimed to have special knowledge that defied what doctors and science know to be true. These people did not seem to carry an ounce of self-awareness, and it showed.

The hubris did not surprise me. What did was the ludicrous portrait they painted of people seeking abortions. I was shocked as anti-abortion testifiers depicted abortion seekers as hapless victims forced to have abortions against their will. The false narrative imagines a woman being dragged to an abortion clinic by her hair where she is given false information by her doctor. After being compelled to have an abortion, the woman is filled with regret and mourning.

This fiction is not only a lie but an insulting one. The woman seeking an abortion is made to seem juvenile and helpless, not be trusted to make her own healthcare choices. Abortion providers are depicted as cartoonishly sinister and evil. Ironically, this is exactly what occurs when reproductive health is left in the hands of Christians: people are monstrously bullied outside of abortion clinics, and if their only option is to go to a (Christian) crisis pregnancy center, they are fed false information and fear.

I was surprised that many anti-abortion testifiers seemed to truly believe that abortion advocates also think abortion is wrong but are too afraid to speak out. I was shocked that so many believed that abortion advocates were being bullied into giving testimony against their better judgment, as if anti-choice advocates are not the ones who operate on fear, misinformation, and browbeating. In both instances, anti-abortion proponents had projected their own tyrannical tactics upon abortion advocates. This was old news, but a new insight for me.

Projection is very common in the right wing, and these anti-abortionists provided yet more examples of it.

She noted a big increase in abortion tourism. "Since Texas began restricting abortion access Colorado has seen a 520 percent increase in patients from Texas alone, and those numbers are only going to continue to rise as other states enact abortion bans."

 

[lpetrich]

More Catholic bishops vow to deny Nancy Pelosi Communion over abortion

NP is a practicing Catholic, meaning that she eats those sacred crackers and drinks that sacred wine.

A quartet of Roman Catholic bishops have endorsed the San Francisco archbishop’s decision to bar House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) from receiving Communion in her home diocese over her support for abortion.

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone earlier this month wrote to Pelosi, whose congressional district includes parts of the city, that she is banned from receiving the sacrament “until you publicly repudiate your advocacy for the legitimacy of abortion and confess and receive absolution of this grave sin in the sacrament of Penance.”

...
“The church clearly teaches that abortion is a grave evil, and that public advocacy for — and support of — abortion is, objectively speaking, such a manifest grave sin,” Portland Archbishop Alexander Sample said in a video posted on Facebook Friday.

“What Archbishop Cordileone did was actually an act of pastoral love and care for Speaker Pelosi and for all those entrusted to his pastoral care, who might have been led astray by her public support of the evil of abortion,” Sample added. “That’s why what Archbishop Cordileone did was the right thing.”

...
Vasa said in a statement that canon law “makes it clear that providing sacraments to someone prohibited from receiving them has its own possible penalties” including suspension for knowingly administering a sacrament to “those who are prohibited from receiving it.”

noting
Pelosi hails abortion protesters after demonstrations at justices' homes

In her so-called “Dear Colleague” letter, Pelosi alleged that “once Republicans have dispensed with precedent and privacy in overturning Roe [v. Wade], they will take aim at additional basic human rights. At this pivotal moment, the stakes for women – and every American – could not be higher.”

“While Republicans want to punish and control women for exercising their constitutional rights, Democrats believe that a woman’s health decisions are her own – and we will fight relentlessly to enshrine Roe v. Wade as the law of the land,” she added.

Pelosi calls 'politicizing' abortion issue 'uniquely American'

“Do you agree with Pope Francis and Pope John Paul II that abortion is murder?” a reporter asked Pelosi — who publicly identifies as Catholic.

“What I agree on is that whatever I believe, agree with the pope on, is not necessarily what public policy should be in the United States as people make their own judgments, honor their own responsibilities, and attend to the needs of their families,” Pelosi responded.

...
“Let me just say this, a woman has the right to choose, to live up to her responsibility,” Pelosi said. “It’s up to her, her doctor, her family, her husband, her significant other, and her God. This politicizing all of this, I think it’s something uniquely American and not in other countries.

“Ireland, Italy, Mexico has had legislative initiatives to expand a woman’s right to choose — very Catholic countries,” she added.

“I’m a very Catholic person, and I believe in every woman’s right to make her own decisions.”

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone:

“A Catholic legislator who supports procured abortion, after knowing the teaching of the Church, commits a manifestly grave sin which is a cause of most serious scandal to others,” Cordileone wrote in a public notification at the time. “Therefore, universal Church law provides that such persons ‘are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.’”

The archbishop posited that Pelosi may not receive Communion until she “publicly repudiates” and confesses her advocacy for the medical procedure — which the majority of Americans support.

This odd bit of activism:
Bill Gates' daughter Phoebe: 'I'm not shy about my body'

Bill Gates’ daughter Phoebe Gates is going viral after posting a bold bikini snap — while protesting the potential overturn of Roe v. Wade. Her swimsuit pic is the opening act for a series of infographics about the “Bans Off Our Bodies” campaign, and is blowing up on Instagram.

pheebeegates - Phoebe Gates on Instagram: “I’m not shy about my body ...”

I’m not shy about my body and/or telling you to keep your bans off of it. Every person deserves access to sexual and reproductive health care. Right now, the Supreme Court is prepared to end the constitutional right to abortion. Join me and millions of other women in our fight for this basic human right.
@PlannedParenthood
#BansOffOurBodies

 

[lpetrich]

The Interstate Tug-of-War Over Reproductive Freedom - "The Interstate Tug-of-War Over Reproductive Freedom"

Starting out with the last abortion clinic in Missouri, one in St. Louis.

“I describe practicing in Missouri as providing some of the most basic and not super-complicated health care with my hands behind my back, in handcuffs, and blindfolded,” said Dr. Colleen McNicholas, an OB-GYN and chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri. “And then tomorrow, I get to go provide the same health care in Illinois, where it is centered in science.”

But across the river is a totally different story.

While lawmakers in Missouri have worked furiously to constrict reproductive health care, politicians and providers in Illinois have been working to increase access. The state made birth control available over the counter, expanded Medicaid to include abortion coverage, repealed a parental notification requirement for minors seeking abortion, and enshrined reproductive freedom into state law. The abortion clinics on the Illinois side of the river — including an 18,000-square-foot facility in Fairview Heights operated by the same Planned Parenthood affiliate that runs the St. Louis clinic — have expanded capacity. Thousands of Missouri residents now make the trip across the river every year for services.

Simply living on the Illinois side of the river cuts a person’s likelihood of pregnancy-related death in half, notes Dr. Erin King, an OB-GYN who serves as executive director of the Hope Clinic for Women in Granite City, Illinois, also just across the border from Missouri.

... providers were joined by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker in January as they unveiled their latest bid to help facilitate the looming exodus: the Regional Logistics Center.

A $10 million partnership between the Fairview Heights clinic and the Hope Clinic for Women, the RLC was designed as a one-stop shop for any patient traveling to Illinois. Patients calling for appointments at either facility are connected to the nation’s network of financial aid and practical support groups; case managers help arrange transportation and lodging or line up cash for food and child care. It is a first-of-its kind operation — and couldn’t come online a minute too soon.

Then describing in gory detail the anti-abortion efforts of Missouri politicians.

 

[lpetrich]

Barriers to Abortion Access for Teens Are About to Get Worse - "Will states seeking to provide safe haven for abortion patients in the wake of Roe reconsider their parental consent laws?"

Illinois stands out as the only state in the country to enact a repeal of a parental involvement law, which went into effect June 1. The change was made possible by Democrats holding supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature and the governor’s office.

Still, it wasn’t easy. In anticipation of Roe being overturned, Illinois has worked to expand access to abortion, but the parental notification repeal wasn’t viable until recently. Even legislators relatively supportive of abortion rights were uncomfortable with the idea of making it easier for pregnant teenagers to obtain a safe abortion.

“I think the reflexive position is, parents should know when their child is facing an unwanted pregnancy and that they would want them to go to them for help, and of course we want that for anybody who’s in that situation,” Rep. Anna Moeller, who sponsored the repeal in Illinois’s General Assembly, told The Intercept. “Unfortunately, there are young people out there who don’t have that, and so it takes a longer conversation to explain that.”

She added that critics often complain about the erosion of parental rights, a grievance that has greater salience in today’s political climate as conservatives are galvanizing a culture war over parents’ involvement in their children’s classrooms.

Parental Involvement in Minors’ Abortions | Guttmacher Institute - abortion-friendly states with such laws: CA, CO, DE, MD, MN, NH, NJ, NM, NV, RI - without such laws: CT, IL, MA, ME, NY, OR, VT, WA

 

[lpetrich]

Beyond Revenge, What Does Jane’s Revenge Want? - "The attacks on anti-abortion centers express a necessary militant fury. But the conflation of militance with violence is a mistake."

JR's message: "If abortions aren't safe, then you aren't either."

When I read that a group calling itself Jane’s Revenge had firebombed anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy centers” in Madison, Wisconsin, Des Moines, Iowa, and other locations from Washington state to Washington, D.C., my first thought was: What the fuck?

Depressing. I don't think that the end justifies the means. I don't think that anti-abortion terrorists ought to be imitated.

The power of the abortion underground as overturning Roe v. Wade looms : NPR - "The abortion underground and what lessons can be learned from the Jane Collective"

What Sunny Chapman experienced roughly 53 years ago in a secret Chicago apartment while blindfolded exemplifies what life was like for women seeking an abortion before Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling guaranteeing the right to the procedure.

It was 1969 and Chapman needed an abortion. The then-19-year-old activist had been working for the Chicago Seed, an underground newspaper, when she spotted an ad that said "Pregnant? Need Help? Call Jane."

Jane was actually the Jane Collective, a group of activists who banded together in the 1960s to provide abortions to thousands of women at a time when the procedure was still outlawed.

"It's a fairly painful procedure, and on a bed in an apartment, and, you know, they did a great job, but this is not how it should be," Chapman told NPR over the phone. "Women should be able to go to medical clinics openly and go into a room after their procedure and be covered with a blanket and have a nice hot cup of tea. And, you know, it shouldn't be this crazy thing. I mean, can you imagine if you were a young woman doing something like this? Would you have the courage as a 19-year-old woman?"

The Jane Collective (1969–1973) | The Embryo Project Encyclopedia

By the late 1960s, "the Jane Collective provided health care, counseling, and abortion services to thousands of women in Chicago" with the help of volunteers, Horwitz wrote.

At its peak, the Jane Collective was performing abortions four days a week and normally serving 10 women daily. In the seven years the group was active, it performed about 11,000 first- and second-trimester abortions.

As the Jane Collective grew, so did the number of law enforcement eyes on it.

"In the spring of 1972, police raided an apartment on the South Side of Chicago," states the Sundance Film Festival on its website in promoting the new documentary on the Jane Collective called The Janes. "Seven women were arrested and charged."

Roughly six months after the women were arrested, on Jan. 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in the United States with their decision in Roe v. Wade. The charges against the women were dropped.

Back to The Intercept. Was this terrorism a false-flag operation by some opponents of abortion to get people to sympathize with abortion opponents?

News coverage indicates varying skepticism. The mainstream media has mostly kept away from the story, while the Catholic press, the Washington Times, and Fox News were all over it. In the May 15 edition of his daily podcast, “It Could Happen Here,” Robert Evans, who covers extremism, reviewed the language of a communiqué from the group and the source through which it came to him, and expressed confidence that Jane’s Revenge is what it says it is, not some right-wing imposter. Evans called the acts “ethical terrorism” — the destruction of “infrastructure” rather than the “unethical terrorism” that targets “civilians” — agreed with a guest that the Wisconsin attackers’ bomb was a “pretty good Molotov,” and pronounced the action “competent” and its messaging clear.

Among abortion rights advocates, Jane’s Revenge — whoever they are — has gotten predictably mixed reviews.

Judith Levine, the article's author, concedes that she is conflicted.

Yet I confess: Their rhetoric speaks to me. The characterization of their targets is refreshingly unvarnished. Agape, in Des Moines, is a “religious fake clinic that inflicts emotional, financial, and physical violence on people who need healthcare and support. They lie to, shame, and manipulate people into not getting abortions.”

Their analysis is correct. The Uvalde elementary school shooting “was an act of male domination and patriarchal violence, meant to make women, children and teachers live in fear. We know it is deeply connected to the reproductive violence about to be unleashed on this land by an illegitimate institution founded in white male supremacy,” reads a call to action posted on the group’s website.

noting
Jane’s Revenge › NIGHT OF RAGE:

“Night of Rage,” the name Jane’s Revenge gave the June round of “crisis pregnancy center” bombings, is obviously an homage to the “Days of Rage,” organized by Weatherman in Chicago during the October 1969 trial of the Conspiracy Eight. The actions included smashing the windows of cars, shops, and restaurants full of patrons, hand-to-hand combat with police, and a planned invasion of a draft board office. The Days of Rage were a bust: The turnout was small, the cops overwhelmed the protesters, and the draft board break-in was foiled. In the end, the actions did little but further alienate Weatherman from SDS and the Black Panther Party, whose Chicago chair, Fred Hampton, denounced the faction as “opportunistic” and “adventuristic” dabblers in “revolutionary child’s play.” Weatherman was “leading people into a confrontation they are not prepared for,” Hampton warned. And indeed, October 1969 presaged the group’s descent into more reckless — and lethal — violence.

 

[lpetrich]

With more and more success, anti-abortionists go farther and farther.

Anti-Abortion Movement Reveals Its Post-Roe Plans, and They're Horrific - "The National Right to Life Committee released model legislation that would ban abortion and even criminalize speech about how to access it."
noting
National Right to Life Committee Proposes Legislation to Protect the Unborn Post-Roe | National Right to Life

Its model law: NRLC-Post-Roe-Model-Abortion-Law-FINAL-1.pdf

Back to the Jezebel article

In a press release dated June 15, the National Right to Life Committee said that if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade—as it looks likely to do by the end of June—states should pass its model law that would ban abortion unless it’s immediately necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman, or if “a delay will create serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.” Literally anything short of those scenarios? Sorry, no abortion. (It doesn’t count, the organization says, if a pregnant woman is openly suicidal.) If a pregnant person somehow qualifies for an abortion, the bill says the abortion should be “performed in the manner which provided the best opportunity for the unborn child to survive.”

... The NRLC release claims “the model law ensures that no criminal or civil penalty will be imposed on a pregnant woman,” nevermind that more than 1,300 people have faced criminalization for their pregnancy outcomes between 2006 and 2020.

The model legislation would also criminalize anyone who aids or abets an illegal abortion, including telling someone how to use abortion pills or hosting a site that explains where people can get said pills.

From the proposed law:

Aiding or abetting an illegal abortion should include, but not be limited to: (1) giving instructions over the telephone, the internet, or any other medium of communication regarding self-administered abortions or means to obtain an illegal abortion; (3) hosting or maintaining a website, or providing internet service, that encourages or facilitates efforts to obtain an illegal abortion; (4) offering or providing illegal “abortion doula” services; and (5) providing referrals to an illegal abortion provider.

"Republicans claim to be the party of freedom. This is apparently what freedom looks like to them."

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yes, this is about banning abortion outright. There was a person talking on NPR about their goals and how they want to have the dialogue and help convince people abortion is wrong, especially in states where it remains legal. Which is code for "we want to have SCOTUS ban abortions universally".

Of course, birth control will be the other thing they move towards.

 

[Toni]

Yes, this is about banning abortion outright. There was a person talking on NPR about their goals and how they want to have the dialogue and help convince people abortion is wrong, especially in states where it remains legal. Which is code for "we want to have SCOTUS ban abortions universally".

Of course, birth control will be the other thing they move towards.

It's already happening: Some states are targeting IUDs and emergency contraception (morning after pill) now.

Some States Already Are Targeting Birth Control • Stateline

Last year, conservative Republicans in the Missouri legislature took a run at blocking Medicaid funding from going to Planned Parenthood, a frequent and prominent target of anti-abortion activists and politicians. But in the fine print of their measure, those Republicans revealed that their...

www.pewtrusts.org

Given that some women cannot tolerate hormonal birth control, this effectively leaves them with only abstinence or condoms as options. Both require total buy in of any and all sexual partners. Or tubal ligation which is expensive and often very difficult to obtain if you are under 30, especially if you do not already have children.

 

[ZiprHead]

My wife and I just signed a petition to add abortion rights to Michigan's state consdtitution.