Don't believe any GQPer who tells you differently.
They are liars:
After the U.S. Supreme Court overturns women’s constitutional right to abortion this summer, Arizona U.S. Senate candidate Blake Master (R) thinks judges should also take aim at the right to buy and use contraception, the Arizona Mirror reports.
You see, it was never about saving the life of a precious potential human being. It's about controlling women's access to family planning so that she can be an independent woman who decides when and if she wants a pregnancy. It's about controlling women who have the freedom to be sexual beings without the prospect of an unwanted pregnancy.
The prohibition against birth control is a Catholic prohibition. I can't think of any other religion (except extreme orthodox religions) that prohibits family planning.
The men and women who are salivating over stopping women from having access to birth control are on a collision course with history. They want to criminalize birth control.
Let's see how American men and women respond to that.
32 comments:
The one thing that will not be outlawed is the aspirin which is the best form of birth control and has been used for decades.
The better suggestion would be mandatory vasectomies for all males of reproductive age (they're reversible). If government can force pregnancies on women, they can force vasectomies that prevent pregnancies on men. As everyone knows, the males are 50% responsible for unwanted pregnancies. Why should women bear all responsibility?
PS: The aspirin doesn't work when a man is raping a girl or a woman.
GQP governors should keep their state governments OUT OF A FAMILY'S PRIVATE family planning business. It is NOT the government's business to tell anyone how many children they should have. That's what authoritarian/theocratic regimes do.
At one point, China had mandatory abortions for any family that had more than one child.
We're headed that way with state-enforced pregnancies.
We here in Europe have much stricter abortion laws than you do in the United States of America.
I would imagine that a candidate for office who tells people he will take away birth control would not enjoy success in that election.
Oh Skud... your solution to the question of abortion is what passes for policy from conservatives these days, and years past.
Just say no!
It was shown that didn't work during the Reagan Admin and it's doubtful it'll work today. So if that's true, and we all know it is, the question is then, what should we do?
How about we work on preventative care and action?
Sounds good right, except the GOP is coming for birth control, contraceptives and more. We are already seeing the extremists who inhabit the GOP today, pressing to challenge Griswold, the law that made contraception legal for ALL Americans. We're seeing the extremists work to outlaw IUD's and the morning after pill, on the grounds that both of these methods are actually abortifacients.
And as many have noted, states with the highest rates of abortion, mostly in the south, have decided not to offer Medicaid to poor people, whether they are have a job or not. So contraception and even pre-natal care for full term pregnancies, is not available for many women. Even though as Nevada has shown, it lowers abortion and provides for better health outcomes for both young mothers and their babies.
But wait, there's more, now we have states pushing to make abortion a felony and put laws in place to prohibit a woman going to another state for an abortion. Why?
The only reasonable interpretation of all of this is a total ban. Period. And draconian punishment if a woman dares to have an abortion.
All of this is happening even as conservatives, pretty well represented by the crew of HMS Mothership of Denial and the rest of your aspirin crowd, mock and deny the reality of what is happening across the USA.
In short, the GOP and their elected representatives, really are pushing for a total ban, with few if any exceptions. For any reason. The GOP wants a total ban that the great majority of Americans of all stripes, reject at margins above 60%. And that's from both liberal AND conservatives polls.
Look, I'm a safe legal and rare guy. Here's how David French, a Wheaton grad, JAG Lawyer, Christian and a long time conservative writer and one who has fought for years to defend religious liberties puts it...
"What do cultural conservatives care about? They’ll say they want intact families, less teen sex and teen pregnancy, less divorce, less abortion, more kids being raised in two-parent families.
On every one of those fronts, I [David French] say, 'Good news!' Divorce has been decreasing. The percentage of kids being raised with their parents is increasing. The abortion rate is lower. If you look at these markers of cultural health, time and again you’ll see they’re actually improving.
That is not to say that society is as healthy as anybody wants it to be. But to hear the cultural right talk about the United States of America, it’s been a march to chaos. The opposite is true."
Eliminating a women's right to control their own body and destiny is simply the centerpiece of the greater conservative push to restrict further the rights of women, and in fact everyone's civil and human rights.
Their desire is to roll back years of liberating social progress and reestablish their
archaic reified political and religious beliefs. IOW they are a distinct minority intent on trying to force EVERTONE to live by their reified bulls*it.
Why anyone with a fully functioning mind would choose to be a conservative or a republican in America today literally blows my mind. Americans may very well be in for the downhill slide of their lives as the country is brought low by a bunch of authoritarian minded politicians whose only goal is to increase their power over all others, both living and not yet born. And, it's pure bulls*it
Rev and Ms Shaw, I know how you hate this term but ir applies to this. Personal responsibility, there I said it but I feel you disagree. I am not opposed to the women's right to abortion because she is the one who has to live with her decision. I am not in favor of using abortion as birth control which is the case in many abortions.
This is a great rallying cry for liberals and they will push it to the max. They have already determined what the vote will be and if it is to leave RvW alone it will be because of leftist pressure so they win either way.
Now if you disagree with a decision just camp out in the justice lawn and get your way.
skudrunner "I am not in favor of using abortion as birth control which is the case in many abortions."
I'm afraid your being in favor or not in favor of why any woman gets an abortion is not relevant in any discussion about a woman's right to autonomy over her own body and whether or not she is able to have another pregnancy.
Again, I'm in favor of mandatory vasectomies for young males (they are reversible), since males are 50% of that "personal responsibility" you wrote about, but I never, never, hear anything about the male's role in impregnating girls and women. Without a male taking 50% of the responsibility, I don't think people should be telling women what they should do about a pregnancy.
Camping out on a Justice's lawn if far less violent than killing people:
At least 11 people have been killed in attacks on abortion clinics in the United States since 1993, including the 2015 Colorado attack.
Dr. David Gunn was shot and killed by an opponent of abortion during a protest outside his clinic in Pensacola, Fla. His death was the first known killing of an abortion provider in the United States, according to the National Abortion Federation, an advocacy group.
Anti-abortion violence returned to Pensacola one year after the death of Dr. Gunn when Paul J. Hill, a well-known anti-abortion protester, shot and killed Dr. John Bayard Britton and a clinic volunteer, James H. Barrett, outside a women’s health center in July 1994.
Dr. George Tiller was a frequent target of anti-abortion violence and was killed in 2009 by Scott Roeder as he stood in the foyer of his church.
A witness who was serving as an usher alongside Dr. Tiller at the church that day told the court that Mr. Roeder entered the foyer, put a gun to the doctor’s head and pulled the trigger.
All of the above people were providing a LEGAL MEDICAL PROCEDURE at the time.
Chanting in front of someone's house because you disagree with an issue seems quaint compared with committing murder, doesn't it?
The anti-abortionists believe killing people will prevent abortions. They won't. The fact is that if the SCOTUS rules abortion illegal, many girls and women will die. There will always be places to get unsafe, illegal abortions. And, of course, families of rich girls and women will have access to save abortions no matter what the SCOTUS rules.
PS. It's none of your or my business why girls and women get abortions.
This country, and especially conservative religionists, accept the slaughter and deaths of children in schools -- even babies like the ones at Sandy Hook, because their 2nd Amendment rights are sacred to them; and if babies, children, teens, men, and women are slaughtered, well, then, for the 2nd Amendment worshippers, that's just what this country has to bear to keep that sacred right. Second Amendment rights are more important than the slaughter of living, breathing innocent children. You must understand that by now.
RN USA,
My thoughts exactly. The fanatics are not stopping at criminalizing abortions either. They're after reversing Griswold, many have openly said so. And the lunatics in Texas and copycat states are going to pass laws that prevent girls and women from going to others states or countries to have an abortion.
Some states are looking to criminalize IUDs and other means of birth control.
Welcome to the U.S. of Taliban.
Let's see how far these lunatics go with their anti-women/girls agendas. And then let's see what happens at the ballot boxes.
Dave
In a way I'm glad that the GQP governors, legislators, etc., are out telling Americans, especially girls and women, what they want to do to them.
I don't know of a woman, conservative or liberal, who wants the government telling her how to plan her family.
This is insanity.
Tell your friend skudrunner that using birth control and family planning (you know, planning how many children you can afford to have) is taking personal responsibility. But the christo-fascists in the Rethuglican Party want to criminalize the use of birth control -- they're going after the IUD, morning after pill, and birth control pill.
Where skudrunner's outrage over the Rethuglican Party interfering with a private, responsible decision for family planning or for being responsible and not having an unwanted pregnancy by using birth control?
skudrunner doesn't talk about that does he.
Responsible family planning is using one of the many methods of birth control. Saying you can wait until the child is almost born to abort is way to extreme even for some democrats but that is what they propose.
Ms Shaw, Protesting in from of a SCOTUS is illegal, at least it was when we had laws. Your suggestion of castration was tried years ago by democrats in the south and by the government and it did not go well.
Dear Gawd, skud! Vasectomy is NOT castration! Try googling it! You are terribly misinformed if you conflate the two!
There is no 9 month abortions. It doesn't exist. And no one "proposes" it.
Protesting on the street, to my knowledge, is protected by the 1st Amendment.
Republican governors and legislators want to criminalize many forms of birth control. They've come right out and said so.
Ilhan Omar
@IlhanMN
It is a little hard for me to take the hand-wringing about non-violent protests outside the homes of Supreme Court Justices seriously when the Supreme Court itself ruled protests outside the homes of *doctors who provide abortions* is protected by the 1st amendment.
Skud... let's do this again, slowly.
Millions upon millions of people everyday have sex. And plan ahead. to use birth control, or contraceptives. Few of them are in favor or, nor am I, of abortion as a method of birth control.
So you and I are in agreement there.
However, apart from that, you've decided to join your fellow conservatives and put your head in the sand. What you refuse to acknowledge and what has some of us unhinged is the movement of the GOP to take away those options that currently exist to help people avoid unwanted pregnancies. And that includes for married couples who want to postpone kids for a few years while they have, yes, unmitigated, wild, ravenous sex.
But the GOP and this anti-abortion crowd is moving to outlaw the ability to access birth control and contraceptives too. You see, simply ending Roe is not enough for them.
You think we're ginning this up? US Senators have said as much. GOP State Legislatures are working on bills now. And yet you seem to be unable to grasp, or choose not to, like the Mothership crowd, the truth.
As for the mostly peaceful protests we are seeing in front of SCOTUS justice's homes, they are just that... mostly peaceful. And Pres Biden has said violence is unacceptable, and has urged patience and peace as people exercise their 1st Amendment rights.
Did you see where Susan Collins called the police because of a chalk writing on the public sidewalk outside of her home? The chalk statement said “Susie, please, Mainers want WHPA —> vote yes, clean up your mess.”
Now, could Susie have gotten her hose or a bucket of water to get rid of it? Instead, she calls the police and the police get the Department of Public Works deployed to scrub off the offensive chalk. I wonder how much that cost the taxpayers?
Paula
True. skudrunner doesn't want to talk about those things because it's too painful for Conservatives to admit that what is being proposed by GQP governors, legislatures, and the SCOTUS is insane and against the will of the people.
Instead skud thinks vasectomies are the same as castration. How do you argue with that?
Possumlady
Senator Collins is a bit of a Drama Queen. Chalking on the sidewalk is not a crime. Apparently she didn't want to be reminded that she was lied to by two recent appointees to the SCOTUS when they said R v W was settled law. She got taken, and sidewalk chalking embarrassed her.
I volunteered as a human shield at my local Planned Parenthood for many years. I, and others, would act as a human buffer between the often very nasty anti-choice protestors hurling horrible taunts, vicious threats and more often than not, whatever projectile was close at hand. The ladies were often traumatized more by this display of barbarism than by the trauma of terminating herb pregnancy for whatever reason. Nobody would undergo the physical, emotional and financial burden of abortion as a means of birth control. Ask any woman who's had one. It just doesn't happen except in the sick, perverted minds of right wingers. As for that daft boy Skidmark's blubbering about 'late term abortions'. I know of nobody who backs them except for the life of the mother or if the baby is not viable. The right wing morons don't know of anybody either but, of course, that doesn't stop the punks from yelling about it to the uninformed which makes up their base.
BluebullAmerica
There is no such thing as a 9-month abortion. That would be infanticide, and that is never, never, never done. As you stated, that doesn't stop the ignorant from claiming it happens because that pours more gasoline of the abortion fire.
The former idiot president, Donnie Trump: "At the final presidential debate, Donald Trump said doctors do abortions in the “ninth month” of pregnancy, that they “rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month, on the final day. And that’s not acceptable.”
This was a blatant deliberate lie to fire up the ignorant in his base, because they'd believe any crap out of his stupid, lying mouth.
Dear Donald Trump: I'm an OB-GYN. There are no 9-month abortions.
"The majority of abortions, 91 percent in fact, happen before 13 weeks, and we know how to prevent most of them: easily accessible, free, long-acting reversible contraception.
Late-term abortions are rare — and women tend to seek them for three reasons
Abortions for the health of the mother only happen before 24 weeks, which is the generally accepted cut-off for fetal viability. After 24 weeks, if a pregnant person is sick enough that she needs to deliver for her health, obstetricians either induce labor or perform a C-section, and the baby is attended by the neonatal intensive care unit.
rump would apparently have you believe, and perhaps he believes himself, that in these situations doctors do a delivery and then commit infanticide. Health of the mother abortions absolutely do happen — in circumstances of ruptured membranes with an infection or deteriorating heart disease, for example — but they happen before 24 weeks. No OB-GYN is doing third-trimester abortions for the health of the mother. We simply just practice obstetrics and deliver the baby by the most appropriate method."
Ms Shaw, You need to read Ralph Northam views on late term abortions.
I guess in some peoples mind abortion is just another case of birth control at least that is what paula is advocating. I do think it interesting that the entire leftist media is all about abortion and none about the incompetent in chief.
"Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) is scheduling a vote this week on a bill that would effectively make abortion legal without restrictions for the duration of a woman’s pregnancy." Guess that makes your comment about no one wanting late term abortions.
I haven't seen anything on restricting birth control except abortions. Scary putting things into states rights because the fed is left out.
skud, I promised Shaw I would treat you with respect so it would have taken you two minutes to verify Ralph Northam's quote. One search told me that his quote was misrepresented by antiabortionists in order to score points.
Ralph was asked in 2019 about Bill HB 2491 (which means the meme and his quote has been around for a while so repeating this bull crap is lazy and irresponsible of you skud). He said "...third-trimester abortions which are done in cases where there may be severe deformities. There my be a fetus that's non viable."
This means skud, since you conflate castration with a vasectomy, that the baby once born will not survive or if it does they will experience great hardship and pain.
Ralph Northam said "If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother," Northam stated.
He's talking about a loved infant, someone the mother has carried in her body for almost a year, loved it, wanted it, prepared a room for this little bundle and yet you brush her pain and suffering off as a desire for "late term abortions".
skud, you claim you are a religious person but I've not met a deity yet who approaches the levels of cruelty which you exhibit here every time you type a comment. Perhaps you should be looking at the people you currently listen too for your opinions because they are leading you to a very dark place.
As for your assertion that the GQP isn't coming for birth control, well, you've been wrong on so many other things, surprise! You are wrong this time too. When someone tells you who they are and what they are about to do, believe them.
Just shaking head as the unmitigated willful ignorance continues to flow forth from the authoritarian conservative peanut gallery.
"...third-trimester abortions which are done in cases where there may be severe deformities. There my be a fetus that's non viable."
"Anencephaly is a fatal condition. Most babies with anencephaly pass away before birth, and the pregnancy ends in miscarriage. Babies born with anencephaly die within a few hours, days or weeks. Infants who survive at birth may seem to respond to touch or sound, but these responses are involuntary."
When I had my first baby, my daughter, I shared a hospital room with a woman who gave birth to a fetus with anencephaly. In those days, it was cruelly described as an "anencephalic monster." There were no abortion rights in those days, pre-1973. There were no ultrasounds in those days either. If she had been pregnant post R v. W., an ultrasound would have shown that the fetus was nonviable and could not live after birth. She then would have been able to have an abortion and not be forced to go through 9+ months and then labor only to be told that her newborn could not live and would die. She was my roommate and she cried every time the nurses brought my newborn daughter into the room for me to nurse (I was the only mother nursing on the maternity ward at that time.)
skud, you have to accept the fact that nature is not perfect. Not all fetuses are perfect and no woman should be forced to carry one to term and be forced to deal with the pain and horror of giving birth, knowing that fetus will not live.
This is why the state needs to STAY OUT OF MAKING MEDICAL DECISIONS! When SCOTUS overturns R v. W, similar tragedies like the one I cited will happen. And the idiot Trumpublican governors and legislators around the country will have made a medical decision for a woman and her fetus. That is insane.
Meanwhile you continue to deny or ignore that Trumpublican governors and legislators around the country absolutely have said they would like to see Griswold overturned. Some states are also considering not allowing women to leave their state to seek an abortion elsewhere. (How they'll accomplish that, I'll leave to your imagination.) And some will require girls and women to give evidence that they miscarried a fetus naturally, otherwise they'll be thrown in jail. Don't believe me? Look at the insanity happening in Trumpublican states.
These proposals for overturning not just a woman's right to choose, but her and her partner's ability to plan a family using birth control are CATHOLIC tenets. The Catholic Church is firmly against abortion and birth control, making it a mortal sin for those who have abortions and use birth control. (I know this. I'm an ex-Catholic.)
98% of Catholic women use birth control. So it appears that the Pope and his emissaries are now involved in American legislation. They're the only ones who keep telling their congregants that family planning is a mortal sin. (Mortal sins send you straight to Hell is you die without confessing and getting absolution.)
How do you like having a religious tenet from a religious organization involved in American law?
I don't like one bit!
"Imagine losing your baby only to be arrested for it.
That’s exactly what happened to Marshae Jones.
Last June, 27-year-old African-American woman Marshae Jones was indicted by an Alabama grand jury on manslaughter charges when she lost her 5-month-old fetus after being shot. The person who shot Jones, whom the police claimed was acting in self-defense, was not charged in the shooting. Jones, however, was held responsible for being in a fight while pregnant, and faced up to 20 years in prison. Due to a dedicated group of activists and lawyers — and public backlash — charges were dropped and Jones was set free. Unfortunately, Jones’ case is not that unique. Since Roe v. Wade, there have been several cases in which women were arrested for miscarriage or stillbirth.
Criminalizing pregnancy loss casts pregnant people as vessels rather than people. A fetus is a person by law in Alabama, and therefore can qualify as a victim of homicide. Someone like Jones could be held responsible for the death of a person if her actions are judged to be negligent. And in states like Arkansas, the language that defines “fetal personhood” is extremely vague, so a person could potentially be arrested for waiting even one minute to call the authorities after a pregnancy loss, or for engaging in behaviors that could put a pregnancy at risk. In Arkansas, five women have been arrested for stillbirth or miscarriage: three between 1884 and 1994, one in 2015, and another in 2016.
Many of the laws that have been used to prosecute people for miscarriage and stillbirth are loophole laws, meaning that since the courts cannot technically arrest someone for losing their baby, other laws must be written that can punish the pregnant person in different terms but still have the desired effect."
Grey, That diatribe was very confusing. First you say northan didn't say he was for late term abortions then you said he did, which is it. What about charlie. Other than saying the republicans are after birth control could you site something even if you make it up.
I will assume you know that regardless of what the SCOTUS does it will not outlaw abortions but just put the responsibility in the states lap to decide. This whole news swing to abortion is a big win for the democrats because now they don't have to think About the disaster they put in office because they couldn't find any sane person to run. I watched his snews conference yesterday and he said less with more words than he has in the past. He did stay true to form and provide no solutions but to blame the republicans, Great job Joe.
skud, you have poor reading comprehension or you're being deliberately obtuse.
Northam talked about a “tragic and extremely rare case in which a woman with a nonviable pregnancy or severe fetal abnormalities went into labor.”
"There may be a fetus that’s non viable” he said. “If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother,” Northam stated.
Are you pretending you don't understand the term "nonviable?" Here I'll explain:
A nonviable fetus is a fetus that will expire because it has severe deformities that cannot be corrected by medical science -- like the anencephalic fetus that I wrote about in my comment. An anencephalic fetus does not have a formed skull, the brain is exposed, the fetus's eyes are deformed, its limbs are deformed, its spinal column is deformed.
I have nothing more to say except that it appears you don't want to understand anything that Grey One talks sass and I explained.
skudrunner: "...the SCOTUS does it will not outlaw abortions but just put the responsibility in the states lap to decide."
What then, skud? Will the red states then stop girls and women from leaving their states to go to blue states where abortion is not banned?
Also, you don't believe lawmakers would ban contraceptive. Well here's a red state US Senator saying just that:
"Tennessee senator Marsha Blackburn has denounced the Supreme Court decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, which covers the use of contraceptives for married couples under the constitutional right to privacy."
Granted, Blackburn is a functioning idiot, and I doubt she alone has the capacity to overturn Griswold, but this shows that Red Staters are after that right to privacy as well.
"In Louisiana, lawmakers are considering a proposal to classify ending a pregnancy at any point from the moment of fertilization as homicide. And the Idaho State Legislature may hold hearings on outlawing emergency contraceptives, a reminder that when we’re talking about “states’ rights,” we should think about trusting your fate to a roomful of state legislators."--Gail Collins, NYTimes
Ms.Shaw, There are a number of functioning idiots on both sides in congress but that is our fault for electing them.
I assume you followed the vote on on demand abortion that was rejected by the senate. All democrat senators with the exception of one voted for it. You has stated no democrat supported late term abortions but as it turns out 49 do.
Unfortunately the republicans have put the foot in it again and gave the democrats something to focus on other that the horrendous performance of the president. I don't think RvW will be overturned but time will tell. If that happens it will be up to the states to decide and then the voters to decide on who decides. This could be a windfall for liberal states because look at the increased business crossing the state line.
The democrats really need a change in leadership because chuckie and botox nan are not having a lot of wins.
There is no such thing as a "late term abortion."
What is a so-called “late-term” abortion?
“Late term” abortion typically refers to abortions obtained at or after 21 weeks, however it is not an accepted medical term, nor is there a consensus around to which gestational ages it refers. Members of the medical community have criticized the term “late-term” abortion, as it implies abortions are taking place after a pregnancy has reached “term” (37 weeks) or “late term” (>41 weeks) which is false.
In a subsequent Supreme Court case on abortion, the court defined viability as follows:
“Viability is reached when, in the judgment of the attending physician on the particular facts of the case before him, there is a reasonable likelihood of the fetus’ sustained survival outside the womb, with or without artificial support. Because this point may differ with each pregnancy, neither the legislature nor the courts may proclaim one of the elements entering into the ascertainment of viability – be it weeks of gestation or fetal weight or any other single factor – as the determinant of when the State has a compelling interest in the life or health of the fetus.” Colautti v. Franklin (1979)
Ms. Shaw, perhaps a definition from ACOG would better define terms
To address this lack of uniformity, a work group was convened in late 2012, which recommended that the label “term” be replaced with the designations early term (37 0/7 weeks of gestation through 38 6/7 weeks of gestation), full term (39 0/7 weeks of gestation through 40 6/7 weeks of gestation), late term (41 0/7 weeks of gestation through 41 6/7 weeks of gestation), and postterm (42 0/7 weeks of gestation and beyond) to more accurately describe deliveries occurring at or beyond 37 0/7 weeks of gestation.
This is like defending which party enacted Jim Crowe, was it democrats or democrats, Semantics
No matter what it is now a rallying cry for both sides and deflects from the real problems facing the US.
skud, do you actually believe that when a "late term abortion" is performed, that a doctor delivers the baby and then what? kills it?
Tell me YOUR understanding of what a "late term abortion," which doesn't exist in medical procedures, under what conditions it happens, and why does it happen.
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