I do not understand why the NY Times and some columnists are suggesting that the battle is over - that anti-abortion hardliners have won.
They have not. They will not. Even is Traitor Mitch McConnell, the Koch brothers and The Con Don's stacked supreme court keeps picking away and/or overturns Roe V Wade they will not have won.
Women will not go back. Together Socially Conscious Women and men will put an end to these preposterous attacks on women's inalienable right to choose what they do with their own bodies and lives by passing the Equal Rights Amendment and laws that seiously find and imprison anyone who tries to subvert Separation of Church and State in OUR United States of America.
Time's UP!
3
If these politicians are so concerned with saving children’s lives why do they turn blind eyes to developing and enacting common sense gun legislation to keep murderous weapons out of the hands of the mentally ill who are mowing down the innocent and defenseless on a weekly basis? These coward politicians are the one’s who should be arrested for inaction and prosecuted for murder. They’ll gladly and self-righteously attempt to take away someone’s right to choose, but over their dead bodies should anyone dare attempt to get in the way of anyone purchasing a machine gun, regardless of their fitness to own one.
15
“Republican politicians in other states are clearly interested in locking women up; last month, Texas legislators held a hearing on a bill that would allow women who have abortions to be charged with homicide and potentially subject to the death penalty.”
Or, Republicans want to end infanticide.
Think more; think harder; think honestly.
3
If they can manage it, women who live in states passing or planning laws that would outlaw abortion (i.e. Alabama, Georgia) should relocate to states that will keep it legal for the foreseeable future. Then let's see how the pro-life men in, let's say Alabama, like the new dating scene in their state with a 10 to 1 male/female ratio?
16
I’ve decided the game in these state houses is to make abortion laws so Draconian it forces the Supreme Court to rule Roe v Wade out of existence.
So I’ve heard thru commentary. But who really knows.
5
One terrifying consequence of some of these laws is that in order to be enforced, the state will have to monitor pregnancies. Can we even begin to imagine a world in which women would have to register their pregnancies with the government?
31
Roe is not going to be overturned, despite the best efforts of abortion advocates to provide the necessary argument for doing so (eg; partial birth abortion, the rarity of which is irrelevant to the visually obvious immorality of same). The worst possible outcome for abortion advocates will be a strict interpretation of Roe's first trimester protection.
For those predisposed to the motivated reasoning that anything and everything to do with abortion are between the woman and her doctor, recall that "it takes a village" (H. Rodham Clinton) and "you didn't create that" (E. Warren). While individual privacy is bedrock in our society, policy issues are the realm of all of society. We are a society of individuals, but we are bound together by our mutual rights and responsibilities.
Grownups would argue that we could resolve this to everyone's advantage by simply adopting Sweden's legal policy on abortion.
2
This is such an echo of all of anti-gay marriage bills that conservatives passed after 2004. Despite the mania, this isnt a triumph for anti abortion activists; its a death rattle, one last gasp of energy before being trivialized to invisibility by the changing world.
5
How about women just refuse to sleep with men until this is settled
32
I have also recommended that. It is an old strategy going back at least to Aristophanes' Lysistrata. He was the best and funniest Greek humorist. So underrated. In Lysistrata the women withheld sex from their husbands in order to end a war.
8
While I apprentice the humor in that suggestion, the problem is that it too commodifies women. We become (or remain, I suppose) only givers of sex.
10
this is such nonsense. Probably half the people on the planet today are here because someone had an abortion at some point and then someone else was born in a subsequent conception. This entire argument is hysterical hogwash. If you don't want to have an abortion, then don't. End of story, but mind your own beeswax.
33
Talk about disenfranchising women...if you miscarry and are charged with a felony, you might not get to vote out the wannabe fascists.
And fascists don't care about protecting the vote.
Seem familiar?
18
America in reverse, at speed. Guess who's at the wheel? White dudes, strike again. Does this mean that these same men will also want to fund social service programs that they previously considered welfare? Many of these unborn kids will be likely to need it. Bible-thumping hypocrites.
37
How did all these demented misogynists get elected? What primitive tribal need drives them in their quest to interfere with the individual rights of 21st century women? What drives these old white men, in their pursuit of demeaning and subjugating the females of the species?
29
There will be guard posts at all red state highway borders into blue states giving mandatory pregnancy tests to all females between the ages of 12 and 60. Those found to be pregnant will not be permitted to enter the blue states. They will also confiscate all birth control and reading material other than the Old Testament. All copies of The New Testament will be banned and destroyed because it describes Jesus Christ's leftist leanings.
25
All the Abrahamic religions started with "good" intentions and provided checks on a relatively primitive and unregulated world where might made right. Ritual baths, harems , unprovoked misogyny, genital mutilation etc. etc.These were just some unfortunate accessories of "civilizing" religions. Some doubt was cast in the middle ages with the aphorism that " the road to hell is paved with good intentions". In the modern era George Orwell finally saw and proclaimed the central truth of our times and the truth about ourselves: "All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others". Until we can reverse the curse of M_GA, until we stop many from thinking they are "more equal" and responsible for regulating "the lives of others" as communists and autocrats do, we will not prevent our self proclaimed saviors from saving us from the sin of being a human being.
11
Civilized people need protection from the utterly dangerous and deliberately-ignorant people on the right (mostly but not exclusively religions zealots) who would punish a woman for having an abortion even in the case of rape or incest, or even when the health or life of the mother is at grave risk.
Mike Pence and his so called Christians (right-wing Evangelicals) are mainly responsible.
But then just look at who and what is occupying the Oval Office, and this type of extremist outcome should been utterly predictable.
And it was predicted by many: Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, Michael Bloomberg, and many others. They talked about the corruption of the Republican Party and the loss of ethics and morality. The racism, the bigotry, the lies, gross incompetence and the dangers to America. But too many Americans ignored these warnings and now we may be forced to live with the consequences of our blunder as a nation!
He must be removed from office by hook or by crook and it must happen yesterday! Because America is in huge trouble as long as he's in power.
17
Did voters not consider this in 2016 when candidate Trump said there should be punishment for women who received abortions? How about when he said he would appoint only pro-life justices to all federal courts? 53% of white women voted for a mouthpiece of anti-abortion zealots and now we're surprised that abortion rights in the U.S. are now hanging by a thread?
31
I’m pro choice, but I readily admit that abortion is not that far from infanticide and in many ways is murder. I just believe that women have the right to do it anyway. I would respect the pro choice activists if they would at least acknowledge the moral dilemma and not sweep the issue under the rug in calling the whole thing a “healthcare decision” like taking a Tylenol.
4
@DRS: I understand what you are saying. I think, though, that women who have had an abortion or who are contemplating one do acknowledge that it is serious business. Abortion is no one's first choice, but it is a woman's right.
20
This is a war against women. White men cannot stand that women have power. They are terrified that one of us will be president. They want to take our rights away totally and turn the clock back 1000 years back.
19
I've keep re-reading this article, and the more I think about it, the worse I feel.
I'm sad for the people of the US. You have a rogue government tearing you apart. It will take a generation for you to recover, and that is IF every Democrat in the country votes in the next election.
I fear that your rogue government is emboldening the far right lunatics in my country, and that of every other democracy in the world. A terrifying thought.
26
If most Muslims believe a fetus doesn’t become a person for four months, and if most Jews believe a fetus doesn’t become a person until it breathes on its own, than don’t these new abortion restrictions conflict with the same “religious freedom” laws that the religious right champions? Shouldn’t Muslims and Jews be exempt from having to comply to laws contrary to their religious beliefs as much as bakers and florists are?
48
Let's hope the fathers of all these fetuses will also face serious prosecution.
37
Boycott Alabama and all these other states that have passed draconian abortion laws! Reasonable Americans need to band together to stick it to these backward states just like we did with the South African boycotts 30+ years ago.
21
I'm male - I shouldn't comment here, as I also shouldn't have gone to work after Kavenaugh's confirmation.
2
Once Roe vs Wade is overturned in all or part— the abortion decision will return to the individual states and decided on a “state by state” basis. Support for legal abortion has always been very mixed depending on the area of country.
2
I wish all who support abortion would take the time to ask themselves, “What if the woman who carried me to term as a fetus aborted me?” Thank you.
2
This week, Alabama’s governor signed legislation banning most abortions without exceptions for rape or incest, with sentences of up to 99 years in prison for abortion providers..."
I'm a (child) rape survivor, with indifferent parents, aka, parents who acted just like 'Rome', when they became aware of the sexual assault!
...had I been impregnated as an 8 y/o, I'd have killed myself for sure, 'cause I WOULDN'T allow a rape_product to be born into the hellish childhood in question!
With all the issues currently besetting humanity, it's high, time for Republicans to devote their utterly, wasted (pro_life_jihadist') efforts / energy to something socially, useful!!
12
Religious fanatics do not have the right to determine abortion rights in New York but New York women do not have a right to determine abortion rights in Alabama.
2
Here's a fun one for you: why should it be illegal to perform an abortions, but perfectly legal to refuse medical treatment for a terminally ill child due to religious views. (Child Abuse Protection and Treatment Act, Sec. 113a RULE OF CONSTRUCTION [42 U.S.C 5106i])
14
Noting on the day that Alabama signed into law its abortion law, it executed a prisoner. Valuing life?????
19
I’m waiting for the inclusion in these laws being drafted and enforced, for the same exact punishment and criminal charge for the man, yes, it can only be a man, whose sperm impregnated each unfortunate woman who seeks an abortion. Why is there no pro iOS for that? Death penalty or life imprisonment for the man, too. I never have, and hope never to step foot in Alabama et al.
8
If Red States truly cared about the unborn, climate change would be their top issue.
17
As George Carlin said, we need more live babies to make dead soldiers.
16
I guess the red states wants to lose child-bearing women to states that believe that a woman should have control over her own body. It may not happen right away, folks, but if these laws stay in effect, the best and the brightest women will relocate rather than give up control over their own bodies, for they will be the ones who will be able to afford to move. What's next you backwoods rickety old white males - outlawing their womenfolk from having their own checking accounts, savings accounts, investments, inheriting anything from anybody or holding a paying job?
13
It was bad enough pre 1973. Here is my personal tale on my blog:
http://graupepillard.blogspot.com/2019/05/my-abortion-51519.html
4
Love the fetus, fear the woman, ignore the baby.
16
@Kenny
More likely enslave and exploit.
4
In Alabama all this may be appealing to those old men who have such opinions about women and their bodies and who has the right to control them. The folks in Washington, even the republicans, have, I suspect, a global enough view of the issue to know that the Supreme Court allowing these laws to stand anywhere in the United States, would be political death for the GOP for a generation or more. It is one of those things they wish for, and like to shout about to whip up the base, but hope it doesn't really happen...
4
I often wonder antiabortion advocates who use the Bible as justification. God doesn't just kill the unborn, he kills actual babies and little kids. Ever read the story of the flood? Sodom and Gomorrah? It wasn't just adults who were killed. How about Passover? God murdered all of the Egyptian firstborn. It seems like Yahweh is the one who is truly pro-abortion.
14
I'm mortified we are even having this discussion. These men are disgusting through and through. I will never even visit backward Alabama, ever. Its even worse we have to prop up these backward states.
12
I fully agree with Ms. Goldberg's assessment of the situation, except for one point. Trump alone is not "remaking" America, we have to keep in mind all the other people who are complicit in this process. Let us keep in mind that it was not Hitler who closed the door on the gas chambers or Stalin that ran the work gangs in the gulags; it was members of those societies who went along with the evils being manifested. These laws are another aspect of the Republican Party's war against women and by extension humanity, freedom of choice, and personal agency, all under the false aegis of "sacred Christian beliefs."
16
GOP: I’m sorry, Mr. Smith, but we won’t remove the tumor.
Mr. Smith: But it could be cancerous or cause physical complications!
GOP: Sorry, it’s a clump of living cells, can’t survive outside your body, there it shall stay.
Yeah, never gonna happen, but it’s nice to dream.
11
Too many people in the south are determined to make sure there is an underclass of people to whom they can feel superior.
They do not want Planned Parenthood.
They do not want to expand Medicaid.
They are ok with women dying in back alley abortions.
They are ok with children living in extreme poverty.
Southern elites can feel superior to these folks.
There is no other explanation for this misogynistic law.
10
If you think abortion is murder, then advocate for the death penalty for women who get abortions. See how popular that idea is. Conservatives would never win another election.
Given that sperm is required to get a woman pregnant, why not advocate for castration of any man who impregnates a woman who didn't want to bear children?
Why don't we criminalize porn. After all, aroused men are not what we need if we want to eliminate unwanted pregnancy.
There are over 400,000 children in foster care in this country. Please line up and adopt one. Oh, you don't want to adopt a child? But I thought you wanted women to carry an unwanted child to term and put it up for adoption.
14
@Jane
Most likely they want to abuse them through exploitation and worse.
4
There was a secretive group in Chicago called JANE before Roe V Wade. They were not doctors, but caring women who coalesced and trained to perform abortions for desperate women. They never killed anyone.
14
It's time for investigators to drag into the light as many abortions related to anti-choice legislators as possible, with details.
7
Time for a day of mass marches, peaceful and organized?
Perhaps the March for Women?
2020 must bring a blue tsunami. Getting out the vote for Democrats will be job one. This tyranny of the minority must be brought to an end.
16
Legislating against abortion is all the more horrific given the US rape statistics. 91% of victims are female and 1 in 5 women will be raped by age 70. We have seen how poorly the church and colleges ( Larry Nassar ) police themselves when children are at stake. Plus thousands of untested rape kit throughout police departments nationwide. Rape is not a priority - punishing women always top of Republican list.
https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics
13
Doesn't America already have enough unwanted children? This is just ridiculous.
10
When is a human a human? One second after exiting the birth canal? 10 seconds before being born? 1 month before?
@Jordan
I sure know that a pregnant person is a human and deserves to make her own decision.
15
How about this...
The man who has impregnated a woman in one of these states should also "suffer" the consequences of an unwanted pregnancy that the woman would no longer be able to terminate legally...the consequences being forced castration so that the man can no longer impregnate another woman.
Let's see how these cowardly male legislators react to that.
13
If the woman having an abortion was coerced into it by an embarrassed baby daddy, does he face charges too under the legislation? After all, we'd want all co-conspirators to face justice, wouldn't we? :)
10
Let's all remember that there are men involved in any woman's need for an abortion!
8
All of these state laws are anti-woman, not pro-life. The same states that proclaim the sanctity of life, that want to protect tiny fetuses as if they were already-born children, are anti-life. They are the ones that treated lynchings of black men and women as events for family picnics, that were silent when black churches were bombed and worshippers killed, and when schools were torched and black children died. These laws have nothing to do with being pro-life. The hypocrisy is clear.
11
Evangelicals falsely believe that their daughters don't get pregnant in high school or college or before marriage. They deserve this law.
4
From what I have read, the birth rate among young white women is going down dramatically. They do not want to get pregnant because they need to work, and get no respite for pregnancy. Then here is the cost of child care, which is horrendous. Then you have a child who is college age and you don't have the money for it. Terrible debt. Can you blame them? If you old white pols are worried about the shrinking white population, think about it. With no abortions you will have many more poor unwanted brown and black babies.. Women with money will find a way out. They always have. You politically expedient right--to lifers will probably not live to see what you have done demographically.
6
Old Republican playbook: get the ignorant to elect the evil to protect the powerful.
19
It is time to resurrect the word secession. If the SCOTUS upholds these draconian evangelical based abominations against women all the States that disagree should band together and secede from the US. Just imagine the US economy without NY and CA! The poor red states would all be bankrupt. The crazy right wing may have antiquated rules of representation, but the coastal blue states have the power of the purse. The Evangelicals are asking for it. Let’s give it to them by bankrupting them!
13
The lives of women in “Post-Roe America” will be miserable unless they are rich, Republican risk-takers.
For the misogynist Republican politicians and judges who tend to be men and who will lead the persecution of women of child-bearing age, an observer can only wonder what their wives, mothers and daughters think of these grandstanding exemplars of masculine piety.
It may not be a coincidence that the cruel Spanish Inquisition was established by Ferdinand and Isabella, the same monarchs who financed the voyages of Christopher Columbus to the Americas.
Three centuries after Columbus, the United States of America was created with freedom of religion and freedom from religion.
Another three centuries later, those Constitutional niceties were found by our leaders to be less important than the male imperative to bully and punish females whenever possible.
100
We need a female prosecutor to question the male legislators in Alabama, and perhaps the conservative males on the Supreme Court as to what it is like to have a woman’s reproductive system. Since they will be unable to deliver satisfactory answers, it will be necessary for them to recuse themselves in all matters related to a woman’s reproductive health.
5
In Alabama, if a doctor A decides a woman's life is at risk but doctor B disagrees, then what?
In Georgia, what does a woman have to do to prove rape? Are the courts and juries really going believe a woman when some poor man's life could be ruined by the mere accusation of rape?
If the government is able to force a woman to give birth, they might someday decide they can force a woman to have an abortion.
6
If I were a criminal, which I am not, I would go into the RU-486 smuggling business. Take orders over the Internet and ship the produce to customers via the postal service.
6
This is unfinished business postponed since civil war defeat of Southern confederate states when those slave holding religious conservative and white supremacist states were defeated yet they practically were allowed to continue its business without much change since Jim crow era.
Trump's win and many subsequent events promoting Christian fundamentalism and white supremacy are baringing those issues that were steadily gaining strength since Reagan era. More militant right wing GOP under Trump bringing American much closer to America's second civil war - either more overtly or covertly.
8
As awful as the Alabama law is - and it is truly awful - it makes more sense to me than other laws that have rape, incest exceptions. If one is truly "pro life" it doesn't make sense to allow abortions when the child is the product of rape. An unborn child is an unborn child, and it shouldn't matter how it was conceived. The other position is logically inconsistent. It's like all the pro-lifers who are in favor of the death penalty and in favor of cutting programs that act as a safety net for poor women who need to support their children. If you're going to call yourself pro life go all in and be in favor of all life not just the unborn.
4
With a fetus as a living person, any “miscarriage” would still count as a child tax credit/deduction/exemption for the tax year, no? How about unintended consequences and potential promotion of the very thing you claim you want to prevent?
3
About two thirds of pregnancies go to term are delivered) will the brain trust go after the women whose pregnancy did not go to full term?
Maybe we should garnish the wages of the father to ensure that child born only because the state compelled it is taken care of? You know the same folks that take women’s rights are not planning resources to take care of the child once born.
Finally, if life is as precious as the claimed by those forcing the government to take away women’s right -why don’t these same noble politicians have the backbone to enact sane gun laws?
The Republicans and Christians are like the courtiers marveling at The Emperors New Clothes - and with fat Donnie as their emperor it is not a pretty site.
3
Rather than waiting around, I hope the ob-gyn physicians in these states will vote with their feet by relocating to states where they are free to practice medicine without the interference of rural conservative politicians.
7
Abortion is a public health necessity. The subtleties of quality prenatal care are numerous, and they require access to skilled care givers who know what to do. About 20 - 25% of conceptions spontaneously abort. Doctors will not help a woman with a spontaneous miscarriage for fear of participating in what others might call an abortion? But women will have to prove that it was God’s will and not some clothes hanger. A missed abortion caused the death of a woman physician in Ireland when she could not convince doctors that her fetus was dead. There are a number of medical conditions that make carrying a baby to term very difficult or impossible. There are ectopic pregnancies (where the embryo is not in the uterus) that can kill the mother by rupturing inside her fallopian tube and causing her to bleed to death. There are blighted embryos, there are chorioadenomas (a rapidly growing placental/uterine cancer that presents with a positive pregnancy test). Will IVF be allowed when we know that more embryos are created then are needed? Discarding them would be killing an innocent baby. We already have the highest maternal death rate in the industrial world We are LAST, 15th out of 15. We are forcing a woman to endure a pregnancy that could kill her. Where are the rules of self-defense. For men, when their personal safety is in question they draw a gun and kill the offender. See: Trevon Martin.
15
It's probably a good thing most of you don't speak Spanish and don't actually have any first-generation immigrant friends and family members. Because if you did, you would see a general chorus on Facebook from immigrants saying "Hallelujah!" and "Praise God!" for all the pro-life legislation sweeping the nation. I say it's a good thing you don't understand how pro-life we Hispanics are, because you don't realize just how ignoring the border and welcoming us in with open arms has contributed to ending your precious Roe v. Wade. Now me, I'm a Puerto Rican, so I'm a U.S. citizen. And while I still live in this colony and I'm disenfranchised, most of my family and friends have moved stateside in recent years. Most of them thought they were Democrats when they went. But now, watching your abortion overreach in New York, they're recoiling in horror from everything you represent. And they're voting. But not the way you think.
3
How easy it is to support the unborn: they don't need healthcare, food, an education, a living wage, a place to live, protection from guns, war or predators. Just look what's happening to the kids who are already born.
6
Prison time? OK, then. Every woman sent to jail for an abortion must be required to give up the name of the man who impregnated her. If she's to be punished for aborting a baby she can't care for, then he also needs to be punished for not wearing a condom.
Of course, the minute the felony charges start affecting men for conceiving unwanted children, I suspect the legislators might be singing a different tune.
Which gives me an idea: the press should do some deep background checks on all the legislators voting for this heinous law. I'd bet money there are either (a) some unwanted pregnancies/abortions or (b) a few children born out of wedlock in this bunch. Get out the handcuffs.
12
Have no fear - US women, and men, who find they have committed accidental impregnation, are NOT going to put up with THIS intrusion into what can only be considered a religious-based law into their lives.
"Fetal heartbeat" and other "proof of life" is junk science - yeh, a handful of cells 3-7 months away from becoming a functional "heart" pulses, but the fetus, at the time of 99.9% of all abortions, an inch of bloody tissue, is no baby.
The ONLY 'justification' for criminalizing abortion is 1) the religious-based concept of a "soul" that is somehow "destroyed" by abortion, and 2) religious prohibitions on non-reproductive sex.
For those who believe either, I suggest we play the religion card, and state that imposition of your beliefs on anyone desiring a pregnancy termination is a violation of 1st amendment rights. For the second group, point out that the abortion rate has declined, because with abortion came the linked right to contraception - another thing those who wish to live in a theocracy wish to force upon the rest of us.
The problem is, we haven't been willing to sink to the level of the anti-s with their junk-science and photo collections.
Maybe the thing to do will be to counter the "it's a baby" photos of late-period stillbirths carried by the anti- crowd with collections of morgue photos and autopsy reports of women who died in abortion mills - and photos of legally terminated pregnancies, asking the public "does this look like a baby"
Fight ignorance with info
9
"If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament" - quoted in the Los Angeles Times today by Robin Abcarian, attributed to a woman cab driver years ago.
No one I know has ever regarded abortion as something to be taken lightly. But no one I know thinks that it is a topic to be legislated. A woman's body is her own. Period. The histrionics in the Alabama law are disgusting, and the law itself is disgusting.
8
Perhaps this will end like Prohibition. It was unstoppable until it became law and then was upended. But we paid for this caper with the rise of organized crime. This is not the way to handle a deeply personal issue. The (mostly) men who mindlessly and fraudulently push the topic to extremes make me sick.
4
Abortion is a very poor, appalling means of birth control, but it is one of the means of controlling human population. And with 7.6 billion people on the planet, we must face the elephant in the room. Many people equate pro life with anti abortion. Ha! Pro human life on a short term basis, maybe, but anti life, human and otherwise, in the long run.
2
I think we have a ways to go before that's a done deal, if it ever happens at all. Lemme look into my crystal ball and see: ah, I got it... Roe is overturned, but replaced by a new edict that allows counties to opt (vote) to have no specific facilities for performing 'bortions. Y'see? It's a Pyrrhic victory for the pro life crowd! Most of the counties who would vote in favor of such a thing already don't have those facilities, so what difference does the official seal make other than to make them feel that they've won something (that they already have). Big city counties will never go for it, so you'll still have a place to go for the procedure(s).
1
I can think of a dozen or more medical reasons for late-term abortion - heart attack, kidney failure, eclampsia, pregnancy induced diabetes, etc... and a dozen more if the woman is a hemophiliac. But pro-choice theocrats would kill the woman.
As for "life" beginning at conception, it's a zygote with less life attributes than an amoeba, so proscribing abortion is just senseless. Unless you're talking about the "soul" which is a religious word for the mind, that is not yet formed in a zygote. That would be the "soul" that Christians, before they became totally nuts, claimed was inserted by "God" at quickening, the indication of an operative, if not fully formed, nervous system. Regardless, "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion".
Abortion is, and should remain, a matter of choice between a woman and, as needed, her health care provider.
7
If men could get pregnant, access to a safe, legal abortion would be the 11th Commandment.
9
"The text of the Alabama law explicitly likens abortion to a crime against humanity. More “than 50 million babies have been aborted in the United States since the Roe decision in 1973, more than three times the number who were killed in German death camps, Chinese purges, Stalin’s gulags, Cambodian killing fields, and the Rwandan genocide combined,” it says. Surely this is a signal to prosecutors to treat it as an extraordinarily grave transgression."
I've wondered many times why these people are so laser focused on abortion, maybe the answer is in here. I read this as a grave signal that this fake emergency (discontinuing tiny lumps of mammalian cells with a splash of human dna) throws all the truly awful stuff in the world in the shade. Where it can be ignored in all good conscience by people who may be only dimly aware there's a world outside the Universal State of America. Maybe some education and exposure to the rest of the world could melt away some of that hardened ignorance in the longer term?
4
25% of pregnancies end in miscarriage. So it seems that God kills more fetuses than doctors do.
12
Whenever abortion is placed on the ballot, even in the most conservative states, it fails. This is why the extremists are forcing these through the courts. People in these conservative states need to speak up - once these laws are passed they will likely be unhappy with them.
5
There needs to be more incentive for women who need to keep their jobs to survive that might dissuade them from having an abortion. If they don't have support people and/or family around, they are left to face this alone and isolated. This can be a very frightening experience. Walk a mile in my shoes as they say. If Republicans want women to keep their children then they should do something to make it possible for a family to not only survive, but thrive. And maybe Democrats should consider this incentive too. I don't believe anyone really believes that abortion is not a traumatic experience, then why not do something to help women out in this regard? In other words, give them a reason, make it possible for them to make such a choice because we all know that having a child is a tremendous responsibility.
1
Reading the online comments I think many people are quite naive about the THOROUGH upheaval of our modern society -- and ultimately economy -- that will likely arise from the changes conservative, anti-abortion (and contraception, by the way) activist want to make to women's reproductive rights will be.
It is NOT just women whose freedoms will be curtailed. A nd it is not just men who are seeking these changes.
Many the women activists who object to legalized abortion do so because they fear it weakens a woman's right to hold men responsible for the support of children.
Forced child bearing could easily lead to forced marriages. To legal limits on and consequences for sexual activity outside of marriage -- for men, not just women. To elders' forced parental responsibility for the support of grandchildren their underage children brought into the world and proved unable to support, etc., etc.
But, even if it, legally, only led to the double standard of the pre-Roe period that primarily made women and girls responsible for and bear the consequences of men and boy's sexual immaturity or irresponsibility or criminality, it would change our society -- and young men's lives and personal freedoms -- profoundly.
Think about it.
1
There were far fewer abortions performed before pre roe than today. The introduction of roe v Wade has encouraged more women to terminate their pregnancies due to the ease and availability of abortion. This is the reason that we are seeing such strict restrictions on abortion.
The overwhelming number of abortions performed since 1973 is mind boggling and disturbing to a lot of Americans. We were told they were going to be safe, legal and rare. Seeing 60 million babies killed due to abortions is anything but rare. This is immoral and outrageous. There was no need to have this many abortions in a civilized society. These bills should change all this.
3
There is no “ ease and availability “ of abortions. As a clinic escort in Charlotte NC I see women drive for hours to the clinic. There is a 72 hour waiting period in NC as well. The majority of these women are low income and sometimes it takes weeks for them to save up the money, as well as find childcare for other children and the expense of some having to stay overnight. The only people who may have easy access and availability to abortion are women of means. But then women of means can always get an abortion, legal or illegal.
12
If these so-called “pro lifers” actually cared about life, as opposed to forcing their fanatical religious beliefs on the majority, they’d put in the hard work of engaging with at-risk women BEFORE they get pregnant and while birth control is still an option.
Keep in mind too that the right, which is where these gestation slavers come from, is the side that uses the support of white nationalists and neo-Nazis to get elected. (Real pro-life, those Nazis.)
But we all know why they don’t do the real work: because it’s not about “life” to these people. It’s about the feeling of superiority they get by shrieking at distressed, vulnerable women as they enter a clinic, and it’s about how much easier it is to spam a comment board with unsupported nonsense about Roe. The “pro life” side will always have the god-bothering harridans, while pro choice will always have those who actually respect and care about women.
6
The future is unstoppable.
A few weak, scared old men are trying to resurrect a variety of flimsy walls to try to stop it.
They will fail.
The vast majority of us are building powerful bridges, every day.
We are the future; we are unstoppable.
Have no fear. Carry on!
12
If men could also get pregnant this would be close to a non-issue in this country. It'd be an issue only to the far fringe elements.
16
unlike the past there will be states that are abortion sanctuaries. where the women or doctors accused of fetal murder can go and not be extradited to the states where those laws put them in harms way. abortion sanctuary states can provide same day second trimester abortions and women not living in those states can get help for their abortions through crowd source funding.
1
Electively terminating a pregnancy is a hard decision. The woman’s right to make that decision (except after the stage of fetal extra-uterine survival) is inviolable. We need universal free, widely available long-acting reversible contraception so women can conceive and bear a child in the fullness of time
9
I have heard many disingenuous arguments from those supporting these laws seeking to overturn Roe, including that women should use contraception. Lest we forget, in 2012 the GOP was seeking to cut access to contraceptives as well. States such as Alabama are deeply patriarchal. I will not be surprised when the next Supreme Court ruling they will seek to overturn is Griswold v. Connecticut, which struck down laws forbidding even married couples from being able to purchase condoms.
13
Absolutely. And are anti-contraception, social programs for low income families, sex education, etc..
3
IF Roe is overturned thanks to the new makeup on the Supreme Court, I'd say a good place to look for the responsibility would be with the 53% of White women who voted for Trump in the last election. Of course the Court should guarantee the rights of ALL Americans to the protections as laid out in the Constitution but it is troubling that little forceful action is pushing back hard in those states that are passing these restrictive new laws. My point is that if states weren't emboldened by their electorates to pass these laws then the issue of Roe would be moot since while the states are curtailing access to abortions, providing access isn't limited at this time by federal laws and in fact states can expand access at their discretion. As women are those most affected by these laws I'd like to see more action from them in picketing states that are taking their access to abortion away because counting on the Supreme Court for justice these days isn't necessarily the safest route in protecting our freedoms.
7
Isn't it time that we stopped despising those who don't view abortion as a convenience for women who could have avoided pregnancy in the first place? Come on, what percentage of aborted babies do you think really were the result of rape or incest? How many were the result of not remembering to take the birth control pill at the ski resort? You know very well that Alabama made an exception for mothers whose doctors said that they would die if they continued the pregnancy. If some states can't tolerate abortion, how about the Supreme Court dodges the issue, sends it back to the courts, and some states can indeed make it very difficult to get an abortion. And I agree that anyone who decides it's too much trouble to get a lift over the state line and get an abortion elsewhere probably shouldn't be raising a child, so you can refer them to the foster care system. In the meantime, a deservedly divisive issue would be somewhat defused. This is ending a human life, and while the abortion pill and the Internet will make a lot of the issue go away, I am still queasy about the Planned Parenthood doctor talking about harvesting foetal tissue, and don't really understand anyone who doesn't join me in that reaction.
1
As if all these anti-life (more accurate than "pro-life" term) support contraception, sex education, social programs, etc. If a person becomes a ward of the state once pregnant, she is not a fully free, first class citizen.
12
@Joan When did I suggest that an unhappy mother become a ward of the state? If she does this properly, she won't even have legal responsibility for the child. Not as long as the child is handed over alive to the police, hospital, even our churches have reception beds for babies. The child is a ward of the state, and they're alive.
I
Hey Mary, no one cares one bit how you feel about their sexual choices in the personal life. You have a really arrogant and self-righteous understanding of how and when unwanted pregnancies happen.
And on behalf of the ski resort community I call for the immediate expansion of access to birth control pills in aspen, vail, beaver creek, and all American resorts. Unethical non-monogamous ski-vacation sex is the right of every member of the elite, as is their right to offend desert-dwelling people.
11
Men's freedoms and rights are assumed.
Women's freedoms and rights have always, always had to be fought for.
I thought we had finally come to realize that women have rights, too.
Sadly I was mistaken.
27
So fight back. Dont rest with being “mistaken.”
6
Most women/couples seeking abortion have compelling reasons for doing so. For example, research on post abortion care in Pakistan shows that the majority of those women were in their mid thirties. had a few children already and could not afford to have that child. While I was involved with the research there several men and women contacted me directly asking for information on abortion as abortion in conservative Pakistani society though legal is not encourgaed and such services do not promote themselves.
Desire to terminate a pregnancy is not easy, one doesn't get an induced abortion just because a facility is accessible and one can afford it. Other than tons of research out there supporting why we need support for aborton, I have plenty of anecdotal evidence to know how abortion saved some lives and how unsafe ones cut some short. In my opinion, induced abortion should not be criminalized, contraceptive methods should be made affordable and accessible for all and emergency contraception should be easily available. We can later debate about abortion in 2nd or 3rd trimester.
5
The fetal personhood hoax is one that takes us into uncharted territory. In the late 1950s when I was in high school and abortion was illegal across the country, we were taught in biology and health classes that there was a distinct difference between a fetus and a baby. The former was not viable outside the womb. Most of the latter would live outside the womb. Now, a heartbeat is a person, at least in some states.
15
Even if the Democrats sweep the 2020 election and Roe vs Wade has not been overturned by then, Roe will remain in jeopardy for the foreseeable future. The Republicans have stacked the judiciary from the lower courts all the way to SCOTUS with conservative judges and Justices. Just yesterday Wendy Vitter an outspoken abortion opponent was confirmed to the federal bench. The 2016 election will impact not just women's lives but men's as well for generations to come. There will be no changing that for many years.
I am and always have been a staunch supporter of a woman's right to choose, marching with my daughter back in the late 1980's in Washington, D.C. to keep abortion legal. I have escorted at our local clinic which provides pregnancy terminations since then. I never, ever thought that in 2019 we would be facing the danger that Roe faces today. Never.
26
@Diana. Roe v. Wade can be overturned only by the Supreme Court. Lower courts do not have the power to reverse a Supreme Court decision. You suggest otherwise. I suggest you take a course in the powers of the lower courts.
There seems to be many one-issue voters in the Republican party and the people who are against abortion are a significant group. The christian fundamentalists who might object to philandering, unless it is the dear leader, will hold they nose and vote for any candidate who will propose the most extreme way of controlling women. I am concerned that women who have a miscarriage will be targeted next. How do you prove that it was not intentional? I'd like the Democrats to identify voters who are not too keen on voting but are pro-choice or support women's equality to cast a vote for any candidate who is pro-choice?
15
If a small clump of cells is now to be considered sacred, what difference does it make how many base pairs their DNA has and the particular order in which they're arranged? The clump of human cells has no essential difference from that of any other animal. Why aren't they just as sacred?
(I know the answer that's given; but I don't believe in a "soul.")
8
@LinusP
I do believe in a soul but I don't believe it happens upon conception. We know that babies once born do not have the characteristics of fully functional humans. Babies have to learn the behaviors our society considers acceptable.
I believe that humans are greater than their heritage and culture with the addition of intelligence and free will.
In addition if babies were complete humans they would only need some guidance to realize they are not animals that is not something they are born to but must be educated to.
Until a fetus is able to exist outside of the mother (independently) and G-d willing become a whole individual then they are not viable. I may be wrong but what we see from fetuses that cannot be nurtured outside the mother seems to be an accident and I doubt that G-d intended for that fetus to survive.
Inflicting an unwanted pregnancy on women is a form of slavery taking away her basic humanity.
That's plain wrong and nasty...If we were not to have sex then it would not be a pleasant experience pregnancy can be a real experience of suffering for a woman who doesn't want it.
Anyone who insists a woman who doesn't want to be pregnant has to have that fetus to full term is punishing a woman for having a healthy sex drive...is that so wrong (having a healthy sex drive)?
I think not...
4
My BF was raised by a fanatical anti-abortion activist. His attitude now is that since we don't have vaginas it's not our issue.
9
So what comes next, pay a fine for having more than 2 children like what China was doing forever?
“Anti-abortion” is a stupid fight. “Pro-life” is a stupid term—just call it “anti-choice” and be done with it. Anti-choice is anti-freedom, which is fundamentally anti-American. It’s really not any more complicated than that. (Insert controversy here.)
“Medical science be damned! Let’s just kill people that already live in favor of saving their fetuses!” What in the world is this insane argument?? Why do we allow people who make such arguments have any power over the rest of us? And, most importantly, what do we value as a society that we want the rest of the world to see? Because all I see here is complete disregard for women (I’m a guy, by the way).
Note: I realize the phrasing here is a bit raw, but I’m just trying to illustrate the reality of the situation instead of sugar-coating it. If it doesn’t give you pause, it’s just glossing over the issue. I saw an earlier comment that stated Gen-Z needs to get off their butts. Well, what have our parents been doing the whole time? Where are the role models? This is something Gen-Z’s parents have fundamentally failed at across the board. Stop throwing all your problems on us. You have the power in this day and age and can solve this now—we don’t. All we can do is point things out because the oldest of us is ~23 or 24 and may have just finished college. Or we’re too busy trying to get y’all to fix the whole climate pollution thing.
14
Nice post. Thank you. I'm a woman Baby Boomer, just fyi. I don't generalize about any generation, except my own on occassion. But my real point is I'm a member of a group, membership one so far!, who is taking back the "life" mantle. Anti-choice is anti-life. It's obvious really. So that is the term I'm using.
4
I’ve been using “ forced birth”, but I like anti life better.
2
Points well taken. But vote please. Against fascism and patriarchy.
6
“Keep government out of our lives”. A familiar Republican refrain. Yet these same misguided folks demand that government control the reproductive lives of all citizens. No wonder America is screwed up.
38
Only when it involves those with capital so they care about that.
2
The abortion laws of Alabama and Georgia are as aggressive as possible. That way, the Supreme Court will have to consider every anti-abortion provision they contain, however extreme. This is the only way the abortion lawyers who wrote the statute can find out how far the Court is willing to go. The lawyers do not expect a clean sweep. They just want a ruling on every issue. This is a legal strategy. It is not the law that they want to enact in the end. Mr. Liptak knows that because he is a legal expert. Ms. Goldberg is not.
2
We must assume that women who seek to abort a fetus, do so of clear mind and intention. To think otherwise, would be to assume that pregnancy renders women incapable of rational decision making. If, as the State of Alabama construes, abortion is murder, then a woman who seeks out abortion should be held as criminally liable as the abortionist.
What if every woman who decided that her family was complete had the right to force her spouse to have a vasectomy? How would men like being told what to do with their bodies? A vasectomy is a great choice -- if a man wants one. A pregnancy is a great choice -- if a woman wants one.
But controlling other people's bodies is a form of slavery.
56
@Holiday
Great comment Thank You
4
This debate has never really been about women or babies, but sperm. It is based on paternity anxiety. At all cost, according to these fine men, the sperm must be protected. That’s why there can be no exceptions and violators must be punished.
It’s all quite mad, but it goes down to deep biological impulses.
5
No it’s religious indoctrination.
4
Or patriarchal impulses. Or imperialist impulses.
1
Saudi Arabia: “An abortion is only legal if the abortion will save the woman's life or if the pregnancy gravely endangers the woman's physical or mental health. The fetus must be less than four months old.” Saudi Arabia has one of the worst women’s rights records in the world. Practices gender Apartheid.
Iran: “Abortion is currently legal in cases where the mother's life is in danger, and also in cases of fetal abnormalities that makes it not viable after birth (such as anencephaly) or produce difficulties for mother to take care of it after birth, such as major thalassemia or bilateral polycystic kidney disease....Legal abortion is allowed only before 19th week of pregnancy.”
“Nowadays, most Islamic legal schools of thought hold that the ensoulment of a fetus takes place four months after conception, which has extended the discussion of abortion in many nations and communities that base their judicial codes off of Islamic law; in Iran, a consensus has recently developed that abortion is legitimate if it is before this four-month mark.”
So Congratulations! Missouri (8 weeks), Ohio/Mississippi/Kentucky/Georgia (6 weeks) and, of course, Alabama (0 weeks) and up to 99 years prison for abortion doctor/provider - you now have more draconian laws on abortion than Saudi Arabia and Iran. It’s not easy to be less liberal than Saudi Arabia’s and Iran’s versions of Sharia Law, but you did it! Hope that all you Trump supporters and Republicans are proud.
58
I can't think of a better way to get millions of angry women and men to the polls to vote Democratic than for this joke of a Supreme Court to repeal "Roe".
19
Republican and ‘self-proclaimed patriots’, no need to ‘feign’ surprise now.
You knew this was coming.
Best to correct course now or forever hold your ‘peace’ as the country’s social fabric is ripped to shreds, along with all the civil liberties that most hold dear.
11
I am tired of the “moderate right” claiming that legislation should be left up to the states. Just as the courts had to intervene to end segregation, there’s no more reason for a state to decide abortion policy than there is for the federal government to do so. If you don’t think abortion is right, then don’t have one.
20
@Lawyermom: US states exist only to provide unequally protective laws to compete socially and economically with each other.
5
There is no moderate right. When do republicans ever disagree and circle fire?
3
And, for a little historical perspective:
"In 1800 no jurisdiction in the United States enacted any statutes whatsoever on the subject of abortion; most forms of abortion were not illegal and those American women who wished to practice abortion did so, Yet by 1900 virtually every jurisdiction in the United States had laws upon its books that … declared most abortions to be criminal offenses."
– James C. Mohr, Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolution of National Policy, 1800-1900
And, at mid-century in the 1800s there was one abortion for every six live births in the US. Abortions were routinely performed, and advertisements for abortion services in newspapers were common (See James Morone, Hellfire Nation, The Politics of Sin in American History).
9
"By contrast, the new laws seek to curtail medical discretion. Under the Alabama measure, doctors can perform abortions only when a woman is facing death or “serious risk of substantial physical impairment of a major bodily function.”
Another problem occurring now in many rural areas is the lack of any doctors or hospitals who will deliver babies. The new abortion bans will make it harder to find doctors to deliver babies everywhere. Many women have to drive over 100 miles to find a hospital and doctor to deliver their child.
6
Well if doctors are smart they will leave such states and let nature take its course.
4
Michael Barbaro, on today's "The Daily," has a conversation with the architect of the Alabama law criminalizing abortion which reveals his, and his movement's, grim logic.
The Alabama law was drafted to directly flout Roe - and to do so with draconian punishments - so the state legislators would get to the Supreme Court at a time when the Court's make-up indicates their chance of success are the best in 45 years.
By launching a broad, multi-state attack, their chance would be even more improved of getting past the courts bound by precedent, to get to the Supreme Court justices with the Trump appointees.
Might they settle for overturning of Roe, in a compromise ruling which strikes down Roe, but also the very extreme punitive provisions they've built into these statutes?
Probably... ditch the 99 year prison terms, so long as Roe gets overturned. Overturning Roe will do, at least until the next round of attacks on privacy and a woman's bodily integrity, justified by an extremist ideology and theology.
12
I recently read an article in California Sunday magazine by Lizzie Presser ("Whatever's Your Darkest Question") about women who've learned to manage pregnancy by taking the ulcer medication misoprostol or by using Del-Em devices. Educating midwives who could learn how to help women safely manage pregnancies without involving a physician was apparently fairly common the 1960s before Roe was legal.
Hopefully feminism has become powerful enough that if the ban to Roe comes, or if most clinics are shut down, or all abortion criminalized, women will again learn how to take control of this situation themselves by organizing and learning how to use misoprostol or Del-Ems safely.
I don't believe abortion will ever end in this country. What may end with the assault on Roe is abortion provided in a clinic or doctor's office. This will be a tragedy & many women will suffer.
But women are smart and not without resources. What will be important is to make sure that ending pregnancy will still be safe, confidential and affordable.
There is a way. Women are not going to allow Donald J. Trump and some crazy rightwing legislatures and SCOTUS to force them to have babies. Those days are long gone.
This is going to be long haul to fight these people and to learn how to take care of ourselves during this dark time if the worst happens.
But women aren't helpless. The culture used to focus on
keeping women dependent and helpless.
But those days are over.
9
Turns out women HAVE allowed DT and the GOP to exactly run over women's reproductive rights. Walk your walk.
3
How easily would Ms. Goldberg, an operative for the Democrats, have us give up on abortion rights, just as Hilary Clinton proclaimed she looked forward to when abortion would be rare. All our rights were won through struggles, not granted by politicians or judges and their ilk, and certainly not through elections. This begins with the Bill of Rights since the original Constitution contained no democratic or civil rights whatsoever. It continued through the civil war, suffrage, the Civil Rights Movement, and the right to Abortion. In each case the courts and politicians merely recognized and codified what had been conquered in struggle and blood. Funny how all the Nixon-appointed 'conservative' judges voted to uphold civil and democratic rights with millions in the streets changing public opinion. Unfortunately, decades ago the Democrats and their water-carriers conquered basically all 'womens organizations' and have been trying to prevent an effective struggle since they sabotaged the fight for the ERA. They give minimal lip service while diverting women's rights fighters off the streets into the dead-end of the ballot box. Now the Democrat politicians are silent on Abortion rights, and undoubtedly will counsel "patience" until after the elections. Time to turn our backs on both parties and go into the streets to defend women's right to choose and the dignity of women and all of us.
3
@AR
Is that the best idea you have?
Walk off, walk out, stop paying the bills? Riot? Mayhem?
There aren't enough anarchists in America to join you in your planned general attack on civil society.
Most of the women in the USA are breadwinners. They need to keep working, because they do not have any inherited wealth, and they also need to eat, as well as to pay bills.
Are you planning to feed & shelter or perhaps even arm them all? Or will Putin, perhaps?
And then what? Give Trump an excuse to declare some kind of martial law? Crack down on dissenters?
Vote Democrat.
The ballot box is your best weapon in this fight.
But until the voting actually begins, by all means, indeed, keep up the pressure on the GOP traitors.
Peacefully!
10
@AR: The "Bill of Rights" is actually a list of restrictions on how Congress may use the powers delegated to it under Article I of the Constitution. It does not enumerate any of the rights and powers the people did not or do not delegate to government, which are said to be "reserved" by us.
2
If the ballot box ever was the best hope for freedom it is no longer. The minority rule and consolidate their power. Not sure what Plan B is but AR is right. We better find one or live (and die) in Orwellian/Atwood Hell.
2
I think it's a benefit for the SCOTUS to weigh in on the question of life and viability. They won't have the luxury of hiding behind euphemisms to avoid the reality of ultrasound images, NICU advancements and abortifacients.
They will have to consider all the facts, not just the ones that support only one position. Times have changed, and they will have to reckon with those advances.
4
These states have some of the worst infant and maternal mortality rates in the nation. Hypocrites.
39
And worst in many other standard of life: education, health, income, medical care, etc.
8
Can we in other states bring law suits against their organizations for the miscarriages?
2
Crossing my fingers and hoping Alabama, Georgia and other states run by fundamentalist Christians attempting to foist their religious views on the rest of us just do us all a favor and secede. At which point I’ll say: “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
There is no avoiding the fact that the only abortions that will be eliminated, if these draconian anti-abortion laws go into effect, are the safe ones.
28
No, the only abortions that will be eliminated will be abortions for poor and middle class women. The rich always get what they want.
16
Secede? Why? They plan on taking you into their fundamentalist-land at the point of a gun. No different from the Islamic extremists. We are now the people we used to point fingers at; the " good" German The " moderate" Muslim. "Oh dear how COULD you just stand by and let those fanatics rule. "
Guess what.
4
I can think of few issues that will drive out progressive voters like this one.
We need to get back the Senate and hold it!!!
53 Republicans represent 143 out of 325 million Americans.
>>>That's way less that half!<<<
Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed by states that represent just 44 percent of the population!
If slavery is our sin, the electoral college and the Senate is our curse. (est. to preserve slave states)
This is not democracy, this is indefensible.
19
How did 2019 become Cotton Mather redux?
4
I almost feel sorry for the anti-choice lunatics. They have abandoned all issues of morality that they once pretended to care so dearly about. They now support a president who cheated on all three of his wives, used prostitutes and porn actresses, dodged the draft, and bears false witness multiple times a day. They voted for a Senate candidate who regularly committed statutory rape. They disregard all the teachings of Jesus. They support the Russian government over the US government. They have nothing left, they are hollowed out and empty. Abortion is literally the last straw they clutch as they continue their relentless march towards the outright worship of Mammon. What an empty meaningless life they endure.
31
Is a woman who wears an IUD guilty of murder in Alabama?
12
Not yet, but give it time.
5
They're rewriting it now.
5
The question I have is what will the GOP do after they've abolished abortion?
16
@Peter Hornbein That is exactly what my concern is. What's next? They will have to find something to be sure. A woman's right to vote perhaps?
24
Obviously they have a myriad of enemies. Muslims. China. Immigrants. Liberals. Socialists. Christian Prayer in school. State funding of religious institutions. The list goes on.
6
Could the times please visit a state ward for abandoned severely handicapped children in these states?
18
Through all of this, I can't help but wonder: How many abortions has our president paid for?
41
Even more than that...how many abortions has Trump pressured women into getting before forcing them to sign an NDA?
17
Thank you for saying that. I have wondered too. If he gets another women pregnant he will pay for an abortion.
6
Next up....outlawing birth control.
20
Just another reason for the reactionary Old South to leave the Union--this time whether they like it or not.
It's truly astonishing and terrifying to see a cabal of old white men (and some women) invading the private lives (and bodies) of all women.
17
I simply cannot understand why men especially southern men are so stupid. No other word for it.
Women have to refuse sex. If the man tries to rape the woman she cam turn him in for rape which is illegal. I know it sounds dangerous and with some men it probably is but we can't sit around pregnant all the time.
It's all about power over women and controlling them. Show men we will not agree to that and will simply withdraw from the game.
13
@BKC, the idea of women refusing men sex to keep abortion legal is misguided and insulting to women. Women vote, hold office, participate in the government and influence public policy. In fact the new Alabama law was signed by a female governor. And there's not much correlation between gender and position on abortion. There are men and women on both sides of the issue and spouses and partners tend to agree, for the most part. For a person to withhold sex from their own partner or someone they like to protest a government policy would just be useless and could end up destroying a relationship for no good reason.
1
Welcome to the new America where the evangelical extremists are winning in their effort to force their christian sharia on the rest of us.
21
Gillead here we come!
3
things will change if/when a prominent republican's daughter dies due to a back alley abortion -
8
Not a chance. They get sent to the best clinics. Just like when abortion was illegal and went on "holliday" out if the country.
8
But SHE won't die. Her father will make sure she gets a safe procedure.
4
A lot of women are going to die.
10
The ladies bringing this on are the same ladies who, through their vote, for years, have denied mother and child proper nutrition, healthcare, childcare, education, and opportunity. They are the cause of more than a few abortions. I look for a gal to sue their butts off, when, because of their ruling, she hastily aborts her child and wishes in a couple weeks she’d kept it. I love babies, but this is between a woman and her doctor. And where are the privacy laws — why should anyone know what a woman and her doctor are doing?
12
Actually that is the legal basis of the right to access an abortion - the right to privacy provided for in the Constitution.
5
Anyone remember the 1985 novel, The Cider House Rules?
5
Apparently Missouri has had just one abortion clinic for a while...
Where’s all the journalism documenting the ramifications in the lives of Missouri women? It’s a huge freakin state! I’m just curious...
7
The revised definition of a republican is someone who cares about life until the fetus is conceived (previously, until the child is born), and after that you are screwed. No healthcare assured during pregnancy to protect the mother and the child, and God forbid there would be universal healthcare once the child is born, or a good education including free pre-school. And pollution of water and air and making the climate worse for future generations is a right of corporations.
And if they could take your social security and medicare away, they would.
And yet, people keep voting republican against their own interests. I am baffled.
21
The are pro-fetus. They definitely not pro-life. Liberals need to steal their slogan and use it. It will confuse them but force a discussion.
We are pro life! Yell the same slogan. Because in truth we are and they definitely aren’t.
3
To give Barney Frank his due: anti-choice people believe life begins at conception and ends at birth.
2
I am a recipient of a therapeutic abortion: one where I was wheeled into an emergency operating room, and because I was so sick from a systemic infection originating from my uterus, my veins would not be punctured. ER Nurses, on call extras, were summoned to get the IVs into my veins. Due to the unhygienic way the needles were inserted into my body, I suffered blood poisoning thereafter. I had been vomiting for a straight month. The vomiting increased to every fifteen minutes. My body was in danger of collapse from the de-hydration the vomiting caused. I shook as if in shock. The month in question, I had been in the ER many times since being diagnosed with not only a pregnancy but some unknown pathogen caused disease. After the surgery, about four hours later, I passed the entire lining of my uterus. It was green and utterly infected.
If you just read the above, you would know that that abortion saved my life, and if there was a fetus, it would not have survived. I would have died first, even before a miscarriage was a possibility.
What is horrifying for me personally is that the backward US States are committing an act of violence, extortion, and intimidation against women, collectively. They are colluding to subvert the legal rights of women throughout the United States. I believe, that the individual efforts by these States was planned and the execution of them is a felony, because they are knowingly abusing the law.
379
@RR
Thank you for your courage in sharing your experience. The US population is about 326 000 000: on any given day is the setting for many medical emergencies (as well as cases of rape & incest) that the demented promulgators of these laws & their supporters, out of sheer ignorance, cannot even fathom.
On earth, today, there are over 3,800,000,000 females & almost as many male humans. The number of pregnancies a woman could theoretically manage to sustain is considerably smaller than the number of pregnancies a single promiscuous male could generate over his entire reproductive lifetime, if he was zealous about it.
This has been wisely pointed out by others, for centuries in fact. It is the basis for the practice of polygamy, whose objective is to rapidly increase a population by maximizing pregnancies, as if kids were a herd.
But with so many pregnancies possible & indeed occurring, the number of medical emergencies (& abnormalities) is considerably higher than these foolish legislators & their activist cheerleaders care to acknowledge.
To usurp the authority of trained medical scientists, as well as patients, families, adults who know their own situation -- to tell taxpayers how to behave, essentially -- is presumptuous folly.
The cruel ignorance behind bills that do not even concede help for victims of incest or rape is shameful.
And where is there any word of accountability (financial, emotional) for men who cause pregnancy? Why are they not to be fined even?
80
I am sorry for what you went through. Thank you for trying to give a human face to women's lives and struggles. I hope you are recovered, or as well as possible.
30
Yes. A huge spotlight must be continuously shined on men's role in unwanted pregnancies. The doctor goes to jail??
25
I am amazed that the US is regressing so much and so fast. The only "peaceful" solution is to vote - and I mean increase the percentage of the voting public - even by some kind of penalty. We suffer because about 50% of the population do not vote - and that is a sign of public ignorance.
18
@Amos: 3 million votes were arbitrarily discarded to elect the most profound insult to the office of the presidency imaginable. This awful system numbs people's minds. Voting is just another squirrel-cage exercise in futility for many.
2
As I see it, the only logically fair outcome would be a scientific advance that enabled men to become pregnant. All joking aside, I do support mandatory DNA testing for the father with legally binding responsibility for support of the mother and child.
8
Republicans want “small goverment,” effecting policies that “expand (its citizens) freedoms, broadens their opportunities, allow them to keep more of what they earn, afford them better education, let them choose their own healthcare, and turn loose the free enterprise system to create more jobs. Except when it comes to women.
11
None of that above is true. They are socialist for the rich and have no problem redistributing wealth to corporations and the military.
4
Let me see if I understand this: men are deciding that women are to be punished for unwanted pregnancies...which are caused by...MEN!
17
@SR It takes two to tango. Rape aside, unwanted pregnancies are caused by men and women.
And the Republican party is supported by large numbers of white women. Many southern white women in Georgia, Alabama and elsewhere are in full support of these new laws.
For good or ill, people really need to accept that women are quite capable of supporting conservative or Republican or racist ideas. This "Men Bad. Women Good" bleating doesn't reflect reality.
1
Anti-abortion laws? We should call these laws what they really are: Forced-Birth Laws.
18
Yes! And take back the "life" word. Anti-choice is too soft a phrase- they are anti-life. Actually lives.
1
I think I figured this outrageous picture out- you build a wall, prevent Latin America from coming in and over populating the US, and then you remove Roe v Wade.
Now, the country's population growth will be climbing up like it was in the 1950's. Is that it?
4
My views on abortion changed when a couple I knew decided to 'reduce' their twins to a singleton because twins would be too much work. This is a middle class couple who could easily have raised another child. They had a daughter, when they became pregnant with twin girls, they 'reduced' to eliminate a burden. It wasn't a child, it wasn't their living daughter's twin sister, it was a burden they could erase from the earth with a medical procedure. Anyone who thinks this is right, I don't want to ever know.
3
@Caroline
There's a lot of selfishness surrounding abortion. They only mention life and death situations, but we know that there is an element of "convenience" in there.
2
@Caroline Good point. Also, that family could have fostered one or both kids. Anything would have been more humane than murder. I actually had no clue that people could be “reduced” (i.e. selectively exterminated, right beside a child who WOULD be “allowed” to live). It’s those sort of excesses, in tandem with sophisticated pre-natal science, that has resulted in a reasoned, and uncompromising push to preserve all life.
2
@Caroline It is extremely uncommon for a doctor to perform multifetal reduction unless there is a complication, which with twins usually is due to one being outside the uterus. I can't help but wonder if you have all the facts, since you're suggesting this was a non medical choice. I find that doubtful. Perhaps you assumed?
13
The Strategy:
Sometimes Most and sometimes Many Americans will be out-of-step with the SCOTUS.
This can be countered with sprouting a thousand or two volunteer groups to fight for their needs and wants.
Life is full of suffering.
In 2017 in Liege, a gang tortured then murdered an 18 y.o. disabled boy. They are currently on trial.
That dead child someone loved lived 6570+ days, not 1 of them easy or enjoyable.
In the US, another man is charged with the murder of his GF's 15 y.o. daughter. I don't know how many of her ~5500 days were happy, but her final months were agony.
Suicide rates are rising for girls 10-14. That there should be any suicide rate at all amongst children should force us all to stop & ponder what kind of a society we are offering to our young? With school shootings? Police shootings? Whether by mistake or not, the fact that Americans fear being killed by a cop is chilling.
Life is full of suffering. In the US, medical care even with the ACA remains spotty, costly & imperfect. Homelessness is a reality across the US. Women are paid less than men & hired less often. Racial, ethnic, lookist discrimination persists, encouraged by Trump. Bullying at schools has been revealed to often include outright rape. There is very little effective LE effort to combat the rape pandemic that blights the entire planet. Oh, and drugs. And guns.
I cannot fault the mother who faced with a grim, dire, unjust reality decides to end the life inside her rather than expose it to horrors that continue to accrue. We have corrupt leaders itching to start new wars & bring back the draft.
The future is uncertain.
Totalitarian policing of wombs solves nothing! Saves No One.
16
So much for separation of church and state.
22
Small-government conservatives must be so proud. They are winning the war for state-mandated motherhood.
9
As a doctor and a woman I'm appalled. I don't live any of these backward states and would move out if I did. I own my body and have control over what I do with it. If this baby can survive without my body, come and get it and nurture it yourself if that's what you proclaim you want. Otherwise, it's my business and no one else's. Don't tell me I need to carry a fetus in my body and care for it during and afterwards. How backwards are you?!
22
@Pp
100% agree.
And how backward are they?
By 2000 years.
11
Imagine a 15 year old impregnated by her father's friend. Refused an abortion. Forced to give birth. (And then likely drops out of school to live in poverty.) Imagine the rapist seeking shared custody, which could include her not being able to leave the state unless the 'other parent' agrees to let her leave. A lifetime being stuck in a state and stuck with your rapist's shadow. It is sickening. It is unacceptable.
24
I agree with this and other compliments that this is sickening and unacceptable. However, it seems that Americans think that going into the street for an occasional demonstration where you can yell and wear a pink hat is all the action that is necessary. Activists who are really doing something are too few and they need the rest of us to join them. Talk is cheap. If we had the kind of population in 1776 that we do now, we would still be part of Britain. If we do not wake up and act, on this and all the other horrors becoming part of life in the United States then this is our life. Trying to undo things like this is a lot harder than getting out and making sure they don't happen in the first place. We could start by looking for allies and having real dialogue instead of attacking each other over unimportant things. This is important.
6
As usual, Ms. Golberg goes immediately for the hyperbole and emotional blackmail to make her arguments, a sad commentary on her interest in the democratic process.
The core question which she seems never to be willing to address is when abortion (legal) turns to murder (illegal).
5
The lunatics are running the asylum and those of us who are truly pro-life (meaning we support access to quality health care and restrictions on weapons of carnage) must all vote. And we must vote every single Republican at every single level out of office. IF we're lucky and our democracy hasn't been damaged past saving, we might have a chance to enact fair voting protections, to eliminate gerrymandering, to get unlimited corporate contributions and the Russian mafia out of our elections. If not, I fear it's President Donald, then Donald Jr., then Ivanka . . . and we devolve to Rasputin or his like.
17
1) I have a feeling that whatever draconian laws are passed in these states, they will be challenged soon by specific cases of women who are raped and become pregnant, who have pregnancies that are dangerous for them or their child, who simply are not ready for a baby. Legislators and the public are fooling themselves if they think these situations are rare.
2) It will be interesting to see if the rate of abandonment/ infanticide goes up in these states. When people are forced to have children they aren't ready for or don't want, babies get killed or abandoned, regardless of the punishment. This happened for instance in China when baby girls were smothered to death. Also, rates of child abuse, disability, etc.
3) I am surprised the Times has not written about the Yuzpe method, early stage emergency contraception achieved via taking multiple oral contraceptives at once. From the 1970s, it is effective and may be more easily available to women and girls who are not able to access Plan B, misoprostol, etc. Most women know other women who have BCPs and getting BCPs may not hold the same stigma as getting those other meds. Effective with the main side effect being short-term nausea and vomiting.
I posted a comment to a link about the method in another article but I don't think the NY Times posted it. This is vital information for women living through these horrible laws.
10
It won’t happen. SCOTUS isn’t blind to the concomitant political risks playing along with this insanity.
How foolish to repeal Rowe. The Furies would awaken from their slumber.
The so-called “pro-life” (actually, pro-patriarchy) movement’s outward bullheadedness masks this simple fact: nationally, it’s badly outnumbered. The deeply angered equal-rights pro-choice majority will have the final say.
Figures it would be Alabama — a middling backwater state of little consequence — that would set off this firestorm. “The least bite hardest”. Maybe it’s true.
7
If it gets worse then pre-Rhône we will need to develop a network that relocates women’s to safe places for their abortion. Funding for the network would be essential. It is sad that. We will need to live in a police state. Glad I won’t live to see that, I am too old.
2
This country is fast becoming as backward and abusive to it's women as strict Muslim countries are. Just like countries where religion is forced and religious radicalism is taught in schools like our Charter Schools, who are now receiving our public education money. Instead of fighting for our freedom against dictatorship and totalitarian government we are allowing it to happen without a fight. The "New Republican Party" has given up fiscal responsibility, the Constitution and all other checks and balances to support their new one party rules authority. They have been infiltrating our courts, our security agencies and every national programs they allow to stand. Are rights are being taken everyday at an unforeseen pace.
7
Oh, the river of crocodile tears from conservatives weeping over the unborn. They just care about children SO MUCH! But where are those tears when they treat war like a reality TV show? When toddlers get ripped from their parents (maybe forever!) over immigration issues? When a kid is denied medical treatment for a life threatening condition by their for-profit insurance company? When kids get mass murdered in school? Let's face reality; most anti-choice conservatives don't care one iota about other people's children. They just get an adrenaline rush from their sense of righteous indignation over this issue of abortion.
41
@Jim
Agree completely.
10
Sharia law has come to America. It is disgraceful that the religious right has amassed so much power, across the land, that their control of State Houses is creating a nightmare for women--and their providers--who want to provide abortion. Shameful time in our country.
12
There is a lot of rationalization in the abortion arguments about who gets to control things. Mainly it is control of women, which was a social norm of sorts 100+ years ago. Today women are achieving, and contributing more and more. The tradition of keeping women down, once universal is now mostly practiced in poor countries and by Muslim cultures. Boy I'd hate to be on the wrong side of AOC, or any of the liberated smart women that are on the rise. Try to return to the 1930's at your own peril.
6
Those states should lose their statehood and be treated as foreign entities.
7
The first mistake is to label one side 'pro-life,' instead of 'anti-choice' whenever the abortion argument heats up. No one is pro-abortion, they're pro-choice. If you don't want an abortion, if you don't believe in abortion, you don't have to have one. However, you do not take away that choice from someone else.
You always hear 'small government, small government' when it comes from the Republicans, but a government small enough to fit inside a woman's uterus. Where are these politicians when it comes to expanding WIC, food stamps, funding public housing, funding public child care, and expanding Medicaid? Nowhere, which isn't a surprise.
This is not about the bundle of cells that have the possibility of being a person; it's about control and power.
I've been called an alarmist because I told so many they would come from the Roe ruling; you have to be on the offensive for any attack. You fight for the rights you still have, even when you have them because if you give them even an inch, they'll try to take a mile. This is the GOP trying to take that mile.
It is a slow process when they chip away at your rights, and that's the point. People who are complacent, and comfortable, usually don't notice it happening gradually; everyone thinks your rights and freedoms are taken away in one fell swoop but we know from history that isn't the case.
TBH if you told me when I graduated high school in '14 we'd be at this point, I'd have laughed. Guess I'd rather say "dracarys" now.
12
Looking at the USA from Europe––yes, I count myself European despite the fiasco of Brexit!––it seems clear to me that America is taking a turn to the dark side.
We from across the Pond have always looked to America for enlightened ideas. There is nothing very enlightened about the new abortion laws they hope will pass into legislation.
I am all for protecting the lives of unborn babies, but the fact remains that abortion is often necessary for a plethora of complex reasons. The decision whether to abort or not is something which should be decided between patient and doctor. Politicians should not meddle in such complicated, highly-personal issues. Frankly, it is none of their business!
This prohibition, if it ever gets sanctioned by the Supreme Court, will lead to no good place. This will all end in tears! America has tried forbidding things before, think the Prohibition. That didn't end well, did it? People drank in speakeasies instead. And alcohol was no longer regulated, so quality couldn't be guaranteed.
This backward move will end in something similar: it will not stop abortions; rather, it will force women determined to get them into the backstreets, where they will find ill-qualified people only too ready to carry them out. And how many deaths will those illicit abortions cause?
19
China’s middle class won’t represent even a third of its population until 2030, so it is inaccurate to say that “cooperative” American companies would have ccess to a market of more than a billion people.
Didn't we abhor ISIS for raping women and forcing them to bear their children? How is this any different? And where are the harsh penalties for the rapists? The Stanford swimmer who raped an unconscious woman by a dumpster got off incredibly lightly, and his father had the audacity to complain that the sentence was too harsh for "20 minutes of action." And if some witnesses hadn't seen the incident, he would have gotten off scot-free. Most rape victims don't have the luxury of witnesses. I know I didn't.
16
And if there is a miscarriage the woman will be potentially guilty of murder? Sounds very much like a Muslim theocracy starring is straight in the face.
4
I wonder if those who support abortion would be so steadfast in their resolve if the woman who gave birth to them had decided to have an abortion instead.
3
@Southern Boy
It is the human and civil right of any reproductive age female to make that choice.
Why are males so terrified of females?
15
Do you spend a lot of time wondering about what non-existent people might say or do?
10
@Southern Boy they wouldn't know because they wouldn't be here.
11
Women and feminists, now’s your chance to undo the horror that’s been unleashing on this country since Jan. 2017.
‘Patriots’, if you ever cared about America or your women (wives, daughters, mothers, aunts, sisters, girlfriends, etc), time to purge the country of this ‘menace’ in 2020, so the Dems can begin the process of ‘healing’ the country, one ruling at a time.
Otherwise, be prepared to live in an America that resembles a former Russian republic more than the ‘land of the free’, envisioned by Jefferson et al.
May God protect America from all its enemies, esp. domestic ones, including the Republican Party.
9
Once again, the party that does not want any government interference in our lives comes into our very bedrooms. Abortion is a very serious issue, but is it a public issue? Is abortion really any worse than the death penalty that we impose in many states or the truly innocent lives that we have squandered in senseless wars?
If we insist on reckoning ourselves of characters beyond reproach, much more reckoning is in order as this act is just a bone being thrown out to appease a small yet vociferous group of our electorate.
2
Next to be eliminated is the right to vote, to work. If you can't even have a say on your own body, are you really a person, or simply the property of my husband, or your father?
Do you see the slipper slope these can head down?
7
Half the population that is female either has the same rights as males or they don't.
No one born without a uterus ought have any say in female reproductive rights...only and then maybe if they've had a vasectomy.
7
There will be a revolt against anti abortion laws . The only question is how long and in what form?
4
What we need is a jail mandated sentence of up to 99 years but no less than 20 years for any elected official who is convicted of violating his or her oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic or to see that the laws are properly enforced or any officer holder who claims that he/she is above the law.
If we had such a law the statute of limitations should be 20 years and these fascists who want to cram their religious beliefs or contempt for women will have something to think about when they think they alone speak for God or are God.
6
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on Friday said she personally opposes Alabama’s new abortion law, which outlaws abortions at any point during pregnancy, even in cases of rape and incest.
“Personally, I would have the exceptions,” McDaniel said on CNN.
Apparently she is under the mistake belief that her opinion actually matters.
7
Only because they see their own extremism undermining their agenda.
I saw her, she is such a liar, she twisted facts.
Why and when was it decided that women would be responsible for birth control?We either have to take pills, have strange little gizmos embedded in our uterus or more recently our arms.All come with warnings of failure, blood clots, ectopic pregnancies, and an infection that renders us sterile.For women to have to take the lead in birth control and men have the overall control of our bodies when birth control fails is obscene.No man has ever suggested that it was their turn to bear any of this responsibility.Please don't tell me they use condoms as birth control..it is used so they don't get a nasty STD.Who is going to take care of all the unwanted children born?Certainly not men,"that's women's work".
8
So, the physician performing an abortion will spend more time behind bars, basically life, while that rapist will not face any significant punishment. Considering that his is Alabama, you wonder why incest is not in the law.
18
Under his eye.
7
Welcome to the United Estates of America, where women are vassals and vessels for men.
8
You really have to admire the ability of the Bible-thumpers to hold what would appear to be two opposing thoughts in their heads at one time. On the one hand, they tell us that "God has a plan for our lives, knew us in our mothers' wombs, and can count all the hairs on our heads". Quite the feat. On the other hand , since some 20 per cent of pregnancies end in miscarriage, it would seem that the "Celestial Planner" can rightly lay claim to being the most prolific abortionist of all. Go figure.
12
I guess Gods a murderer by their standards.
1
We live in two countries the north and the south. The north should stop subsidizing the south with its tax dollars until they stop their nonsense
12
My brother is a highly paid aerospace contractor that recently was offered a lucrative job in Huntsville Alabama. He turned it down because it was in Alabama.
16
You forget to mention the Indiana woman sentenced several years ago to 20 years for murder under Mike Pence's governorship.
Or the Tennessee woman in prison for attempted murder for a self-abortion.
Not hypotheticals -- this is what Red States want.
15
Yes Alabama, Missouri, and others may have draconian laws against abortion, but there will be more alternatives than there were pre-Roe. I believe it is a huge mistake to overturn Roe v Wade, but the consequences won't be as bad. Abortion will be legal in many more states than pre-Roe, and travel is easier. If it is overturned, I am certain there will be a day when Alabama and others will eventually provide legal abortion. In the meantime there will be some women who suffer and even some that may die from illegal abortions.
I support abortion rights, but I just don't see a basis to permit abortions after 12 weeks (significant health issues aside). You generally know you're pregnant in a month, so that gives you 8 weeks to decide. I get it that this a woman's right to choose and I'm not suggesting that right should generally be taken away, but really? 4, 5, 6, months into a pregnancy and we'll let people abort? That's nuts. Woman have a right to control their bodies, but to suggest that that right is unfettered is absurd. Woman's rights in this regard are to be balanced against the rights of that unborn child. You think 12 weeks is too short? OK, tell me how 6, 7, 8, months isn't too long?
33
@BCnyc
No one is suggesting the right should be unfettered. Straw man. You are not being serious.
94
Many tests for chromosomal abnormalities are not performed until weeks 12 or 15, and often take at least a week or two to get the results. These abnormalities can result in stillbirths or death within weeks of birth. Why should women be forced to carry these births to term just because you think 12 weeks sounds about the right amount of time for a woman to decide?
217
@BCnyc Since when do women whimsically decide to have an abortion 4,5,6 months into a pregnancy? Furthermore there's not an abortion rights person I know who supports abortion just because. It is never a happy event and women I know who've chosen this course do it with much thoughtfulness and care. Plus ideally there are also thoughtful partners and doctors involved.
In terms of late-term abortions, if you do any research on the subject you'll know that they only occur in dire circumstances and as a last resort. They're tragedies for all involved.
189
I suspect that some of these states will consider IUDs as causing the murder of the fetus, and outlaw them, too. Are these legislators and activists willing to adopt children who are biracial, or hiv positive, or children of women who used drugs and/or alcohol during pregnancy, or who merely had no prenatal care? They envision happy, healthy, bouncing white babies, but the world isn't like that. I am the loving mother of a 19 year old biracial adopted daughter, and I thank God and the Supreme Court that her mother had a choice of what to do with her body, and that as of today, in our state, my daughter has that choice, too.
7
Can women who live in Alabama go to another state and terminate their pregnancies without fear of prosecution if they return?
70
Well the law has no provision for prosecution of the woman who is pregnant actually HAVING an abortion, so.... I'm guessing it doesn't matter. As I understand it the law is only to be applied to doctors, or whoever provides the abortion.
5
@Stupidly Optimistic
In many states there are now proposed bills to prosecute women who have an abortion no matter where they get it. Basically, you could never return to the state.
35
@Stupidly Optimistic
They could not be prosecuted as the state would not have jurisdiction over acts that occurred across its borders, however the federal government could potentially enact similar legislation that would make women vulnerable even if they cross state lines. Additionally, the Alabama statute proposes criminal punishments for physicians who perform abortions, not for women who receive them (Georgia has proposed criminal penalties for women, however).
21
Interesting that you note a difference, and then explain it without noting there that it was an explanation. The old laws contained a loophole, you note, which provided wiggle room. Perhaps that this loophole allowed what was intended to be prohibited to go forward is at least one reason why the new laws are written differently.
Admittedly, the differences are greater than that, but it's still part of the explanation. It is also a part of a legal strategy, albeit one I think has a mistaken assumption and is likely to backfire (which is one reason why some pro-life activists oppose the new laws).
You would think prohibiting abortion was a plot against women by men, but it must be that a significant number of women are against allowing abortion. Of course, I am assuming that women vote in the Confederacy.
4
@chairmanj - Women do in fact vote in the Confederacy. But I believe they have to first show a permission slip from their husband or father.
8
@chairmanj
There are 25+ states restricting female reproduction, many of them in the west, midwest and even north.
Your're welcome. Now, do your own homework.
@chairmanj
You are right. A large number of church women are "so called" pro-life. I've been in their churches. If a woman has never experienced an untimed, unwanted pregnancy, often they have little understanding of what it is like.
5
Gail Collins has pointed out many times in her columns that the Evangelical Right (more like Evangelical Wrong) is, at its heart, about controlling sex, not just birth. In a belief systemic in which all sex could have a living child as the outcome and in which women are Biblically subordinate to men, there is no conclusion other than a complete and total enforcement of the birth of ALL pregnancies.
There’s a downright obsession with sex: when it should be had (when the man wants it, even if the wife doesn’t), with whom (only a spouse of the opposite gender), and probably even how (they don’t call it the Missionary Position for nothing). Forget sex for fun, or because it’s your anniversary or because it’s Tuesday (or whatever day of the week you’d like it). Sex is for baby making, period.
So, by controlling the outcome of sex through forced birth, the real objective is to control the sex lives of Americans - particularly women - so that they reflect the Biblical beliefs of one group of people.
For at least one giant pro-life segment of the population these bills are absolutely about defeating the separation of church and State.
28
The U.S. Constitution assumes that citizens are people who have been born. No mention of "the unborn child" is made in that document. The Right, however, frames the issue as if that phrase were an empirical fact, rather than their own version of the fact that fetuses can be understood in ways different than their own. Their version goes on to call people who disagree with them as "pro-abortion." I have yet to meet a person who is "pro-abortion." In concrete situations, people need to make decisions about having a child, never an easy decision. Glittering generalities, based on religious or metaphysical speculations are not good grounding for the making of civil law. The recent heartbeat laws will not, cannot decrease the number of abortions. Public policy that supports liberty of all persons is the assumed basis of law in this country.
9
@Timothy Leonard - True, but a corporation never passes down the birth canal and yet is considered a person. So don't try to apply actual logic to the Supreme Court.
15
Time for massive retaliation in states that still protect a woman's right to choose...
We need to organize a nonprofit that performs invitro fertilizations with the sole purpose of destroying the embryos. We need millions of women to donate eggs so we can destroy more embryos than the other side can "save"...
This way we can show those regressive states that their laws are actually causing the destruction of more embryos than before. If they really want to prevent embryos from being terminated, they'll have to repeal their laws!
1
Perhaps the state legislators in Alabama and Georgia who voted to essentially ban and criminalize abortion wish to present themselves as motivated by a surpassing, spiritually based love of their fellow man -- but we know this is seldom the case. Given that these new laws are a radical departure from what most Americans regard as settled law, there is a strong smell of aggressiveness and violence about them. I find it especially telling that Alabama and Georgia both have among the nations (and the world's) highest rates of gun violence.
12
Will pregnancy tests become a controlled substance so that each sale or use in medical facility is recorded and then there is a follow-up on the results? What happened to the people who don't want the government in healthcare? Or to the people who argue for small government?
13
@CollegeMom - Yes. Their next move will be to control pregnancy tests. The good news is that these are the same people who can't even keep heroin and meth of the streets. So I am sure they will be equally ineffectual against the flood of pregnancy tests from blue states.
8
There won't be a post-Roe America. The legal beagles are just starting to get warmed up.
4
There should be no legal basis on earth to entertain the thinking one has jurisdiction over a woman's choice to give birth or not.
10
The overriding, deafening care that some people have for a few clustered cells doesn’t seem to carry over to the organism, months and months later when it’s born and thereafter. It’s a “pro-life” strategy that could be inscribed on the tip of an unbent wire hanger.
7
These laws will affect women. Pretty much ONLY women. This is why it is easy for the men - and largely it is men - to make these decisions. If/when/until these efforts to restrict women's rights affect men in the same way, these battles will rage. How can men be sentenced to the same commitments required when having a baby?
15
@GBM - Well, by 18 years of child support, for starters. Not the same level, but it's something.
4
@Jim - Child support isn't easy to collect. Non payment doesn't even impact a person's credit score.
7
If they don’t pay throw them in prison for 99 years. After all they should care about the baby’s well being from the father as much as punishing the doctor who performs the abortion.
1
There needs to be compromise on the issue of abortion. I heard a radio interview of a woman who only discovered she was pregnant at eight months, due to some medical condition she had. She paid $10,000. for a later-term abortion. To me, this is killing a baby which could have survived outside of the womb. Why not have the baby and surrender it for adoption??? On the other hand, early-term abortions are often no worse than miscarriages which happen every day in America.
The real problems is ignored by the right-wing. They believe that criminalizing abortion will end it. It will not, it will only result in desperate women dying from back-alley abortions.
In 1924 my great-grandmother died of an "infection" and for 70 years the rumour spread that she had tried to induce an abortion. Her husband caught pneumonia driving is wintery weather to the hospital to see her. He also died. They left four young boys to fend for themselves.
3
I don’t think women should have to compromise when it comes to their own bodies. Every choice should be one’s own. It is disgusting the way women are treated when they want a legal abortion now. Counseling, vaginal ultrasounds, waiting periods after counseling, and the stigma around discussing with medical doctors or having the procedure take place in a doctor’s office (rather than heading to Planned Parenthood to be protested and then to sit shamed in a room with women only seeking an abortion, which provides no privacy about the medical decision) is all about treating adult women as if they are incapable of making their own decisions.
8
@Kathryn Alexander - Radio interview where? I highly doubt that any doctor would be willing to perform a late term abortion when there is no medical reason to do so.
3
She was rich. This law won’t hurt people that are rich. Probably a republican mistress. You think they will actually follow the rules you people are setting up?
This is the stage of pregnancy when a "fetal heartbeat" is heard:
A blob of cells that is less than a 12th of an inch, not even a fetus, this is a blob of organized cells no larger than a flake of dandruff.
The same GOP senators expressing outrage who are claiming they want to "save" a blob of cells that - again - is a blob of cells and is no larger than a 12th of an inch - are the same Albama senators who refused medicaid expansion which resulted in Alabama's infant mortality rate going up.
So, let's be clear about these men who think this is a game.
They have NEVER expressed concern about the infant mortality rate in their state that they have caused to go up. They have NEVER expressed concern over those actual human fatalities.
Women vote. If you are opposed to their decision to invade your right to privacy, your well thought out decision concerning your body, and your doctor providing you with the treatment you have decided on, SUE THESE SENATORS.
Also, BOYCOTT THE BUSINESS WHO JUST SHRUGGED THEIR SHOULDERS WHEN THESE SENATORS DECIDED TO DO THIS TO YOU.
Also, VOTE THEM OUT OF OFFICE.
35
@Jbugko
It is also not a heartbeat but fluid moving through a tiny embryonic tube.
4
Worse? Please stop. Should Roe vs Wade be repealed by the Supreme Court it will not outlaw abortion. The question of abortion legality will revert to the states. Are you suggesting New York, New Jersey, California, etc. will outlaw abortion? If you choose to live in Alabama and want an abortion then leave and get one in 35 states where it will be lawful. We are a nation of laws and democracy and choice.
3
It will be interesting to see if those states like Alabama will find a way to prevent women from seeking out of state abortions or prosecuting them for it. I wouldn’t put it past them to try to punish women any way they can.
4
Actually, you can’t leave to get the abortion in another state. The Georgia abortion ban states that a woman who decides to seek an abortion in another state will still be prosecuted once she returns to Georgia.
14
@Mike Patrick
So it'd simply be a matter of democracy and choice if Alabama, Georgia and all the other backwards states that are so eager to outlaw abortion also reinstated Jim Crow laws? And black people in those states could just move to New York, New Jersey or California if they didn't like it?
5
When abortion is outlawed doctors won’t even be taught how to do them.
I love the photos of the anti choice-so many men.
6
Anyone who does not consider climate change the number one issue to tackle on the agenda list is not pro-life.
Evangelical fundamentalists have caused this. When will they be challenged?
13
This was the one major reason to vote for HRC. We botched it.
5
@harrybythebeach
Maybe but electing HRC never would have resolved the raging ignorance and seeming hatred of women that predominates in the states with the largest amount of evangelical and fundamentalist christian churches.
7
@harrybythebeach
What do you mean "we"? Nearly 66 million Americans voted for Hillary Clinton, the best and most qualified presidential candidate in 50 years.
If you mean the "we" GOP Humpty Trumpty crowd, the 30% of Catholic latinos and 10% evangelical blacks, the Bernie Bros who stayed home on election day. Then yep. That cold blooded invertebrate segment of America botched it.
2
This is all so sad. We are way overpopulated on this planet. Women should have control of their own bodies and reproductive capacity and functions.
The votes of male politicians must be remembered and those forcing women to stay pregnant regardless of her circumstances...must be voted out.
This is not about pro-life. It is about controlling women. Women can control themselves just fine.
Religious beliefs are also fine when self-applied. Forced on others? Not ok.
18
What about the quarter of pregnancies that miscarry naturally in the first 12 weeks? Are those murder too?
Do the Religious Right have some plan in mind to keep women locked in oxygenated chambers to avoid this since-time-immemorial genocide of life that doesn't make it to the starting line?
Not to mention that north of 40 million swimmers left to die every time a man wastes seed. We should probably lock those members up too.
Only then will we be truly 'celebrating life' to the maximum effect.
6
"Republican politicians in other states are clearly interested in locking women up;"
and yet almost half of all women and clear majorities of white women continue to vote for these Republican politicians. Tell me why that continues to happen. Please, I really need to know
4
The words "fetal personhood" are repeated as something bad, but there's no explanation why it's a wrong term, and when is a beginning of "a person"?
@areader this is a subjective question, and one that is usually answered by religion. For example, in one religion (Judaism I believe?), the baby is not considered inhabited by a soul (a person, perhaps?) until "quickening" when the mother feels the baby for the first time. Usually around 4 months. The answer can only be viewed from that lens. There is not a scientific test or marker for "personhood". It is a spiritual question. This is precisely why the choice must be left to the mother based on her religious or other personal beliefs. It is the right of the American citizen to worship as they choose. It is called separation of church and state.
3
When it can survive outside the womb.
What saddens me is that outlawing abortion (like being pro-gun) has become a shibboleth for Republicans and others on the right. Purity tests like this set up an us/them, win/lose mentality that drowns out the complexity and humanity in the underlying issue. Most people I know have much more nuanced views on abortion (and guns!), but those get little attention.
5
Maybe it should be left to doctors then.
We should never institute a taboo which targets a particular segment of the population, in this case women. What’s next the reintroduction of black servitude? I suggest that we redefine rape to include causing an unwanted pregnancy whether or not the sex is consensual. The offender will be given options such as mother and child support for life even if the child is eventually adopted or becomes a ward of the state. If the offender isn’t willing to fulfill the financial option then it’s lots of prison time after being permanently unmanned to prevent a recurrence. These draconian measures are based on a premise that contraception is the responsibility of both parties. These measures may also encourage male legislators and voters that the abortion option isn’ so bad after all.
9
Sad that our country is in danger of being run by the backwards few. Can’t the republicans find a different way to rally their base? Don’t they realize that they are harming themselves and their children in doing this.
8
Before I had children, I had 2 miscarriages, both around the 11th week or so. The fist one happened at home, after a sudden onset of cramps I lost whatever was there in my own bathroom and ended up in the hospital the next day for a D&C. The second one happened 6 months later, when the Dr. could not find a heartbeat at around 11 weeks of gestation. I ended up in the hospital for yet another D&C. What would happen to someone like now? Would I have to 'prove' that the pregnancies indeed ended spontaneously? Without me doing anything untoward to make that happen? These laws are inhumane to a scary degree and the potential ramifications for women are frightening.
27
@AMM
Also, would there even be doctors trained to perform D&Cs for incomplete miscarriages?
4
This is really a war between having a Theocracy or a Democratic government and laws. What will the citizens choose...better they study history before they make a decision.
14
This will affect the poor. PERIOD. Those with money will seek an abortion in another state. These men in government is pushing to see what women and the courts will ultimately accept. I'm all for leaving the children to the state. They want to force births. Now THEY can raise them.....and make more jails, to support their for profit penitentiaries.
15
Except the Georgia law makes it a crime to leave the state for an abortion so unless you’re prepared and able to move to another state (how many working and middle class people can just up and leave their job and home), you’re not off the hook
9
@linda l
It affects all females and female legal rights.
Don't do the bidding of these miscreants for them by dividing young reproductive females by fungible income.
@Denise - Georgia has no say over what its residents do outside of Georgia. They had no say when they sent bounty hunters to recapture slaves in the north, and they have no say now.
4
If we value life purely in quantitative terms, hundreds of eggs are ovulated by a woman in her lifetime, each one non-fertilized is left to die, 'aborted' if you will. Most women will only ever have a percent of those make it to birth. And even of those that do get fertilized, a quarter will perish in the first trimester for no discernible reason. In quantitative terms, we are taking this tiny subsection of life-potential and arbitrarily putting special status on it.
The qualitative argument is even worse; first trimester fetuses feel no pain, cannot think, feel, or do much of anything other than continue cell mutation. We kill hundreds of millions of livestock a year that feel far more than that, purely on our culinary preferences.
This whole situation is absurd. It is demanding hugely onerous limitations on a woman with no sound reasoning to warrant it.
12
Post-Roe America will be even more crowded than post-DACA America. This isn't going to end well.
3
I once did a disability evaluation for a 28 year-old woman who was accompanied by her 39 year-old mother (the mother was raped by her father, thus they both have the same father - think about it for a moment if that is not immediately comprehensible).
The woman said she would have completely understood if her mother had chosen an abortion. The mother said her life would have been unimaginably better if she didn't have to raise a child under the same roof as the man who raped her.
This took place, I should add, in the deep south - not one of the states mentioned here, but one of the states that is pushing hard for the same kinds of laws.
And as numerous posters note, it is largely the Blue states that push for means to help such children.
"Love thy neighbor as thyself." I never could get a straight answer, those years I lived in South Carolina, as to how the alleged "Biblical" view on abortion related to that statement.
17
I remember online comment forums talking about how the Rs were going to overturn Roe v Wade and how many conservative posters pooh-poohed that concern, saying that it was settled law. We shouldn't worry about the Rs gaining power because it was going to be all right. Who's pooh-poohing now?
17
@Amanda
I remember comments denying that 3rd trimester abortions even occurred. Let's all be honest. There's a lot here the doesn't see the light of day.
1
If the people disagree with this guy in power,then they should get out and vote for whoever the democrat is.Being mad and disagreeing with what they do don’t work.It was pretty clear what he would do with the judicial system and right wing wishes.
3
If women are going to be forced to carry all pregnancies to term, then ALL men must have their DNA entered into CODIS. As soon as a baby is born it's DNA will be taken, a father determined and an immediate child support assessment levied against any and all assets they own, and any all future wages until the child reaches 18.
27
@Stephanie
So, by the same token, the aforementioned child support will also entitle these ‘fathers’ to visitation and partial custodial rights, uncontested?
1
Pro-Control.
That's all these bills are for. There is nothing Pro-Life about them, especially when the legislators who write and pass them have zero concern for the health of the woman, or the health of a baby if it makes it through birth. Cutting funding for sex education in schools, funding for schools in general, wanting to restrict access to birth control or outlaw it all together; these are all dangerous bully tactics used to keep women under men's control. And to keep the poor, poor and disenfranchised. These legislators MUST be voted out, now. Shmane on them all and those who vote for and enable them.
12
A century and a half ago, a conservative minority trampled on the rights of the majority with their Fugitive Slave Acts. The southern conservatives continued to use the cudgel of intrusive government until it dragged us into civil war. Now, today, they are back to their old tricks. The Republican Party of 2019 is now the party of large intrusive government. They are the pro-slavery Democratic Party of 1850. They are party against civil liberties. They can't be reasoned with. They can only be defied and fought.
11
“Elizabeth Warren just announced her abortion platform", says Vox article May 17.
"It’s aggressive…..has little chance in congress. But Warren is one of the few candidates with a clear plan---to enshrine abortion rights in federal statute, in case Roe is overturned.
Warren writes, “This is a dark moment,” People are scared and angry. And they are right to be. But this isn’t a moment to back down — it’s time to fight back.”
While many candidates condemned anti-abortion laws, only a few, like Gillibrand, have taken concrete positions.
Polling --- 71% of Americans oppose overturning Roe — including 52% of Republicans,” Warren writes. “Congress should do its job and protect their constituents by establishing affirmative, statutory rights that parallel Roe vs. Wade.”
And Warren wants to " reverse the Trump gag rule, that bars providers getting federal family planning funds from performing or referring patients for abortions.”
So voters will watch as the new wave of anti abortion laws push the Dems to take strong stands against the GOP calculated offense against womens' rights.
Federal rules would uphold the principle of Equal Protection of the Laws for Americans-- no matter which state a woman lives in.
12
Time for all us in states that protect abortion rights to provide housing and transportation for women seeking to maintain control over their bodies and terminate unwanted pregnancies. Let's get organized.
5
“The legal loophole provided a space in which doctors and women could negotiate and allowed physicians to perform abortions in the privacy of their own offices or homes,” Why on earth would anyone in their right mind think that doing invasive surgery in such settings is a good & safe idea? Answer - no one except a pro-abortionist.
1
I will never believe that this issue stops at abortion. It is in many ways, capitalizing on the desire to preserve what's left of the antebellum south and to harvest more white votes. Given that some states want to adopt charges against a mother who has an illegal abortion, I can believe that this would mainly be used for women of color, very much like the imbalance we have with other "crimes". Many poor white women would have the support from zealot and religious groups sniffing them out, but many other minority women will be ignored, and tacitly encouraged to seek illegal means. This way another vote will be suppressed, by either a botched abortion, or jail time. I am not a conspiracy nut, I have known women from the south who have expressed concern for this many years back. I don't know if these politicians realize that there are many anti-choice black groups also, that will jump on this. If you think overpopulation is bad now, let's try adding up all the forced births. And just think about how more powerful the anti-choice zealots will become if women are faced with dangerous illegal means. We need to keep abortion legal in all states, or we will be facing a very strange dystopian future indeed.
7
“When God creates the miracle of life inside a woman’s womb,” he said, “it is not our place as human beings to extinguish that life.”
So, what if I do not believe in "God"? Is it part of being an American citizen to believe that the creation of life is " God's miracle"?
Is this law based on a religious believe?
15
Exceptions for incest or rape were always hypocritical: if you contend that an embryo is an independent person who abortion murders, than how that person came to be is logically irrelevant. To admit that there are circumstances that justify murder concerns the pro-choice argument. I actually admire willingness of these fundamentalists to effectively concert this. But it also leads directly to the prohibition of IVF, which even the rich on these states won't be able to work around.
2
Yes... this is what we need to push on... that if abortion is illegal, so should IFV be.
2
Roe v. Wade which permits the government to get involved during the second and third trimesters does not do enough to protect the rights of women. Time and again, the Alabama lawmakers justified their abortion ban in terms of religion and faith. That is a clear violation of the separation of church and state. Finally, these laws look very much like actual crimes against humanity. Rape and incest are god's little miracle? The death penalty for having an abortion?
11
@Robert - I'm hoping that language will come back to bite them in court. There's no way to legally defend it and have it stand.
5
I grow increasingly alarmed at the civil wars we wage in the United States of America, which are less united every day.
Live and let live is becoming increasingly difficult, and the lives we're seeing shaped for us are etched in cruelty and attempted or actual subordination of large populations (e.g., women, Muslims, migrants, people whose skin is not white).
It's so painful to watch us tear our country to pieces.
6
The most cynical aspect of this debate is that I do not believe for an instant that the majority of Republicans actually care about this issue. They just see it as a means to gain votes.
They are using women's lives as a wedge issue.
18
Unless every GOP politician is voted out of office this will be our future.
8
So are these lawmakers proposing to fund poor woman and their children due to their inability to have an abortion?
5
We all need to understand that life is priceless to the right wing only before birth. After delivery, they have no inclination to provide healthcare coverage, subsidized childcare, extended family leave, etc. Then, that precious life becomes the problem of someone else...namely the mother forced to carry the child to term.
I wonder how the some of the GOP right-to-life zealots would react if , when in need of emergency medical care, all they received from a hospital emergency room was a pain-killer medication and the hospital's best wishes.
10
There is much, much worse to come if the courts allow the abortion bans to stay in place, if they de facto overturn Roe Vs Wade if not fully de jure. You will then see congress, under the power granted by the full faith and credit clause, require other states to respect the bans of the state a woman is from, so if a woman goes from Georgia to NJ for an abortion, they will require NJ to respect Georgia law and turn her away, and yes, they have the right to do that, they are the arbiters of the clause. And you could see a replay of the fugitive slave laws, where agents of the anti abortion states are allowed to go into states where abortion is legal and arrest those violating their laws, and if anyone thinks this is hyperbole, you haven't been around the so called pro life people, they are as rabid as the slave states were in getting back their 'property'.
There is another possibility, if the GOP has both houses of congress, with a sympathetic congress they could usurp states rights on abortion. Because abortion law inherently involves interstate commerce, conservatives could take a page from what more liberal politicians have done and come up with federal bans, arguing that since abortion can involve insterstate commerce, congress can regulate it, you could potentially see a national ban on abortion done this way, and with a SCOTUS that is owned by the GOP hard right, good chance they would uphold it.
9
@music observer
That's horrifying I understand the stance that abortion is a form of murder I fully disagree with that. Just to be clear my birth parents were WW2 orphans I was born in 1950. If abortion was legal then I might not be here.
I firmly believe that abortion is a decision to be made by the women who are pregnant ( the only time there could be an exception to that) and possibly the partner of the pregnant woman. Even then it's a decision for that woman and her doctor..she should not have to explain her decision to anyone. I fully understand the idea that the fetus is a possible human and therefore entitled to the right to life.
However until the fetus is able to survive outside the womb it's not viable. If the fetus is born early then the woman (and possibly the partner) should have the ability to take "extraordinary measures to keep life until viable occurs.
Under all circumstances the woman who has the fetus should (with her doctor) decide whether to abort or not.
Women are half of our ability to procreate but they have the burden of carrying the fetus and usually to care for it at least 17 years.
Women should and deserve to have the same rights as men when it comes to their own healthcare. All the rest is just buying into dogma and frequently it's men who (even if they had no role in creating a fetus) decide if a woman can have an abortion. That's just wrong. As an old white man it's just my opinion and opinions vary but I firmly believe what I just said.
2
I'm at the point where I'm fine with seeing everyone who did not vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 suffer the consequences of these events.
This was obvious for anyone paying attention. Anyone who voted for Trump, or voted independent, or didn't vote, has endorsed this. Going further, anyone who has ever endorsed even a sliver of religion entering the political square has laid the groundwork for this. School prayer? This is on you.
Angry but resigned. I'm done having kids. I'll probably advise my daughters to leave.
23
@Sarah ~
What were all those people thinking who voted against Hillary Clinton when Supreme Court appointments were on the line? Elections have consequences and this consequence is huge.
12
I will most likely be burnt at the stake for saying, but I'd prefer abortion to become a state issue again. I know legions of people who cast their presidential vote solely on who will overturn Roe v. Wade, and I'm tired of dozens of other issues languishing for want of a federal response. Remove Roe as a federal issue and you remove obstacles to thousands of single-issue voters in Presidential, Senate, and House races.
More importantly, those state where legislatures (legislature, not necessarily the people in that state) oppose abortion have chipped away at Roe v. Wade to the point where its effect as a law protecting the right to choose has become all but meaningless. Yes, the law in Alabama is pernicious and wrong, yes, there are likely worse laws on the way. Use this as an opportunity to focus on state legislatures (mostly men, mostly white) incapable of understanding women's rights, with views firmly stuck in the 19th Century, and remove them from office. The GOP is a minority that controls this nation largely because it controls the states. It's time to take a long view. Rest GOP control of the states, and you give control of this nation back to its people.
7
Remember the actions of a desperate mother, of leaving an unwanted baby at the church doors wrapped up in a cardboard box? The modern equivalent should now become leaving the unwanted baby at the Governor's mansion gates, or legislative building's doors or at the home of the family of the father. Things would change pretty quickly if this were to happen.
14
To my reckoning as a religious agnostic and a skeptic about all things political I believe the resolution of this political and legal crisis may well play a role in whether or not the Union survives more than another decade or so, or whether, instead, something dreadful results in the end of the United States of America as a unified country with a single National Capitol in Washington, D.C. I am not optimistic about the potential for a simple and peaceable resolution to this profound spiritual, moral and legal crisis for America. :(
7
Of course it will be worse. It is ironic, but before Roe in many places where abortion was illegal, there was a lot of wiggle room when it came to specific instances where an abortion was performed, people realized that there were gray areas, and often law enforcement looked the other way, understanding the realities.
What we are seeing today, though, if anti abortion forces who are not only black and white, they are biblical fundamentalists who believe, not in the compassion of Christ, but the vengeful, wrathful vision of the Hebrew Scripture. It is not surprising the lack of empathy shown by the anti abortion voices writing these laws, it mimics the very lack of empathy or love shown by so many evangelical Christians or conservative Catholics who dominate the anti abortion voices. A lot of this IMO has little to do with abortion, it is more about achieving their goal of a "Christian" america, ruled by a white evangelical minority, that wants to create their version of a utopia, where men control what women do, people who are different cower in a corner afraid, and where to be blunt, we have a country run by the ignorant, white, rural and rust belt types who put Donald Trump in office, happy that he has made being openly hateful okay.
16
I will keep on saying this. Women have one way to go: take ownership of the issue pregnancy - which is THEIR issue -and welcome ALL women under that umbrella. Their power is in numbers and they must act now. From women who want abortion on demand to women who, for their own personal and religious beliefs do not accept abortion or contraception, all can agree on one thing - prevention of unwanted pregnancies. Am I the only one who wonders why medical science - with all its advancements - has not come up with a precise way to determine when a woman ovulates? What woman in the world- whether for or against contraception - would not want to know this? All the sign-waving in the world won't stop the government from taking control of women's bodies unless the number of women uniting to take ownership of the issue becomes a political force to be reckoned with. It is time for women to see their unique role in reproduction as a true source of natural power. Don't put off until tomorrow what MUST start today. Focus on what all women of child-bearing age have in common and bring them together.
The fight to overturn Roe v. Wade is not just about abortion. It's about fear of the further empowerment of women, especially now that they have broken through the glass ceiling.
9
@eduKate
I agree with your position on birth control. For the life of me (no pun intended) I don't understand why pro-choice women haven't advocated forcefully for a birth control method that is effortless and effective.
Many women cannot handle the birth control they have. It's too difficult to use on a regular basis, that allows for zero errors and exceptions. In effect, it requires perfect usage 100% of the time. That's a bad situation with dire consequences.
The real issue is not access. Its usability. Pro-choicers need to figure this out.
1
@eduKate there are many methods that a woman can use to check if she is ovulating.
@eduKate
I've never understood why women want sons and not daughters. Why they treat their daughters so awful while coddling hothouse flower sons...that often grow up to hate and abuse all females.
"As we watch Donald Trump remake this country in ways that once seemed unimaginable, it’s tempting to reach for historical analogies to grapple with what’s happening."
For women's rights, I think you'd have to go back to Victorian prudery.
In that era, women were regarded as children-- legal minors incapable of managing their own affairs. They could not own property. (If single and working, the money would have been administered by her father. If married, all a woman's property would have transferred to her husband.) A man could divorce for any reason; a woman could not. Women could not sign legal contracts. Women were barred from higher education. As late as 1914, in rural England, a husband could legally sell his wife at auction or by pre-arranged agreement.
So the idea, "we want to protect women's health" strikes me as misogynistic sophistry. Anti-choice advocates probably won't stop at overturning Roe vs Wade. They will only be satisfied with a kind of de-facto theocracy based on social mores from a bygone age.
We might do well to ask what is causing so many Americans to hate women. If anti-choice isn't hate; it certainly isn't 'tough love' in my opinion.
Source:
Evans, R. (2016) The Pursuit of Power: Europe 1815 - 1914. New York, NY: Penguin Random House.
6
Throughout history women have always quietly dealt with unwanted pregnancies on their own terms. We always will! Given the plethora of contraceptive devices available today females can easily exercise their power to choose. It's up to us to exercise that power.
2
A poor, uneducated woman in a rural area has little access to information or the actual birth control that you are talking about. There are no magical forms of birth control that do not require some actual device or medicine. Males often have the say about when sex happens, and would not necessarily pull out or wear a condom if the woman asked. This is the problem with "solutions" from people who have no experience of communities that are extremely poor and have limited access to knowledge or services. The lives of many women are indeed lives of quiet desperation and few of their fellow citizens have cared in ways that led to any meaningful action up to now. There are no clinics in many of these areas. The pharmacies may not even sell any type of birth control devices if the woman could even get a prescription. She probably has no computer and could not afford to order something on the Internet anyway. If the car is not working or she can't afford gas she certainly couldn't get to a clinic where someone could help her. Many rural clinics do not even have an OBGYN. Your post is completely discounting the actual lives of so many women in the United States.
4
Excellent analysis by Goldberg. I thought her point towards the end of her op-ed was especially important: The idea of Trump as just a rerun of Richard Nixon is a comforting one (and one that plays to nostalgia), because we know that "the good guys and gals won in the end". It lets us off the hook in 2019, because we "know" that history will play out as it did in 1974, and that everything will work out just fine because of the Constitution.
4
@Josh
Roe v. Wade was passed during Nixon's 2nd administration and with the his approval.
Roe opponents were almost exclusively Roman Catholics. Evangelicals didn't hop aboard that broke down misogynist bus until years later.
4
It’s an interesting proposition that a return to the past can be worse than the past. That could because people had adjusted to the old order, knew where their back-alley was, and the police too knew what to overlook. The new order grew out of the old one when enough people had come to understand that women were in the best place to make decisions about having children.
Now, women are still in the best position for the responsibility but there is a stronger network building to fight that. One wonders how it would work, if the fundamentalist capture of the government continues.
3
If Roe v. Wade is overturned the practical effect is to ban abortions for poor women in one of the states passing these restrictive laws. Abortion will still be legal in many states, and women with means will simply travel to those states. The pro-life extremists need to think about this, all their efforts will do is push poor women further down into an abysmal life. They may have moral reasons for pushing these bills, but they should not be imposing their morals on the majority of citizens that do not agree with them.
4
@James Fear - I'm pretty sure they know this and they're just fine with it. Right wingers like having someone to look down on and push around.
3
For better or for worse, MANY rights depend on where one lives:
"Why should a woman's rights depend on zipcode?"
For example, if a pregnant women lives in a country that outlaws abortions, she's subject to that law. If I live in a state that imposes a 15-year penalty for a crime that the neighboring state imposes only a 10-year penalty for, I'm subject to the 15-year law. And on and on and on. In other words, zip code DOES matter.
On abortion, I'm in favor of allowing it, but I can't honestly say that my position is morally supportable, especially for partial-birth abortions. Favoring abortion is more convenient for the mother and father, but I certainly understand moral objections to it.
Some argue that "If you don't like abortions, don't have one" -- essentially arguing that government should just stay out of it. But the same could be said about the killing of adults -- some people are so evil, after all, that it's impossible to fault anyone for killing them. Yet nobody seems to object to laws prohibiting homicide -- to argue that the government should just "stay out of it." So it's not clear why we should draw a distinction for a fetus. I would, but I recognize that this is a selfish position that I have taken solely for personal convenience. There's no moral basis for it.
@Commenter
There is no such thing as "partial birth abortions."
3
These new draconian laws have turned my anger into white hot fury. I know that I am not alone, and I now have a daughter in her mid-20s who feels the same way, as do her many friends, all of her room are registered and vote.
Up until yesterday I was fine with a male Democratic President in 2020, but even that no longer seems good enough. I am going to turn all of my efforts in making sure the next leader of this nation is female. It is urgent.
14
Why do you care if the president is male if he supports women's rights? This back biting among factions opposing Trump and the GOP are going to ensure he gets a second term. Idealism is the enemy when it gets in the way of results.
13
If these laws go into effect, it is conceivable that every miscarriage will be treated as a potential murder investigation. This is already happening in some Latin American countries where abortion is illegal. There are women in El Salvador, for instance, that have been jailed on murder charges after unavoidable miscarriages.
21
This may not be well received, but it is how some of us older women feel. A friend of mine and I are now almost 70. For decades we volunteered many hours to work for politicians who supported women's rights. We spent time phone banking and walking neighborhoods with leaflets. We donated to NARAL and went to rallies. As time went by we noticed fewer and fewer young women in our ranks. The term feminist started to be mocked. I believe the younger generations started taking it all for granted. Women still don't have equal pay. We haven't had a women president. And now we are losing the control of our own destinies. The younger generation needs to get off of their butts. They should be in the streets. We have raised young people that expect someone else to do the work.
887
@Teddi
You make a reasonable point. Part of it, maybe even most of it, is due to some younger women taking the right to choose for granted. Note, I say SOME, I am heartened by the many socially engaged younger women- and for that matter, some young men. (I know I’m showing my age in this post.) But I wonder if socially engaged younger folk are still the minority - after all, it is documented that younger eligible voters vote less than older.
But I have to wonder if it's also because the term "feminist" has been vilified as much as "liberal" has.
79
@Teddi
As a member of the "younger" generation, I don't think the whole issue is that we need to get off our butts. We're not lazy - in fact, as several other recent articles in the NYT have highlighted, many of us work longer hours and for less financial security than our parents did at our age, and of course that has an effect on our willingness/ability to use our time for other pursuits. And let's not forget that, although younger people vote less, they also tend to vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. Older voters tend to vote more conservatively (in the 2016 presidential election, for example, Trump won 28% of the under-30 vote vs. 53% of the over 65 vote).
Another big difference is the culture wars that flared out of control with the Republican Revolution of 1994, when anyone who was born after 1968 (50 years old today) was still too young to vote. Abortion has become a touchstone issue in a way that it simply was not (as this article demonstrates) in the pre-Roe era. While younger people need to take responsibility for their own beliefs and positions, they grew up in rather than created this highly charged atmosphere which now exists with people electing candidates solely based on their abortion stances.
But I do agree with some of your points I think it's a lot like with vaccinations - once progress has been made, people start to forget why the old ways were dangerous or had to go in the first place.
86
Your assertion is incorrect. By far, young people are pro-choice even when they aren't pro-abortion. They actually understand science. They certainly understand it better than the anti-choicers who go on about DNA and murder. Most know that an embryo and early stage fetus isn't capable of pain and suffering. They have a more nuanced understanding of what constitutes a person. They're also more socially aware and see the suffering of millions of children who are unwanted, can't be cared for, and whose needs are ignored the same politicians and religious busy-bodies who want to force women to bring more of the same into the world. Outside of Fundagelicals and conservative Catholic young people the anti-choicers have few allies.
33
While the right wing is encouraging the rank and file to go after abortion rights and threaten to put women back to the '50s, the leadership might be up to something else.
I doubt the Kochs and Mercers really care about abortion rights that much. They're after different prey, and the battle over women's rights suits them just fine. While we're fighting this battle, they're going to tighten their control over the economy and the resources that people need to live.
It would be easy to say "keep your eyes on the ball", but that is glib and minimizes women's rights. There are two things in play here, and we need to keep an eye on both of them.
If we let the aristocrats assume full control, there won't be a debate; they will decide what happens.
9
It’s like vaccinations. We have forgotten what it’s like not to have access to these things. This is a reminder to us all. Even those of us who in recent times forgot that feminism is still needed. Me too, Black lived matter. This is a time of much needed collective remembrance and truth telling.
18
Those in favor of laws forcing women to incubate fetuses, forget that by starting down the path of reversing precedence on established law, it will be only a matter of time before the pendulum will swing back. Further the gun lobby should be very concerned that eventually the right to own a gun will only apply to those who are members of the well regulated militia, in other words the military.
9
@Bill H
Indeed! When the spotlight for overturning constitutional law gets turned on gun ownership, many of those demanding jurisdiction over women's bodies today will have to accept jurisdiction over their guns tomorrow.
4
The depth and breadth of ignorance of the anti-abortion activists is beyond understanding. There is a nastiness in addition to misogyny attached to their fervor, as well. These know nothings are still in a minority, thank heavens, and we must watch language that inflates their numbers--which is very discouraging to the brave individuals fighting for womens' rights.
The anti-doctor actions are also dispiriting. We cannot let our country lapse into a Neanderthal state, with hatred towards many and freedom for none. States like Alabama have made misogyny, and thus hatred, their state motto for all intents and purposes.
How dare the legislators of anti-abortion states try to impose the most backward and cruel laws towards women and doctors since the "dark ages"?
29
If it's worse it's only because we have become more narcissistic since 1973.
3
Think of how a ban on vasectomies would be received. Would men be willing to give up the right to make that decision themselves? Now imagine if women could make the decision about which men should receive a vasectomy.
26
The side that is most opposed to abortion favors health insurance that doesn't cover maternity. (The affordable care act requires health insurance to cover maternity.) The maternal death rate in this country is about three times as high as it is in other developed countries. Those that would make abortion illegal aren't doing anything to encourage women favor child birth.
16
All women should withhold all sex from men who don’t believe in abortions. No sex, no accidents. The burden is on the women, one mistake costs 9 months sentence. Men have no repercussions.
16
@Marcia O
Women are generally free to have sex or not. This is certainly one way to avoid pregnancy.
These new restrictions/bans on abortion are based on the religious beliefs of the religious right.
Religion should be practiced and NOT enforced!
Instead of making their beliefs law and allying themselves with immoral and corrupt politicians, they should go back to the commandment of Christ and the apostles to preach The Gospel and save souls.
7
Stephen Colbert had the best reaction to the Alabama legislation. He said a doctor receiving 99-year sentence would be released from prison in Alabama sometime in 1895.
True that.
26
I have wondered what will happen when a woman in Georgia does procur a now illegal abortion and then flees to New York or California. Under extradition agreements those pro-choice states will be legally coerced into returning these women to their imprisionment in these red states. This is very much like the situation with the fugitive slave law where those in the North who supported human freedom often turned to militant action to protect the human rights of fugitive slaves. We are heading toward civil war and we who beleieve in the Right to Privacy and the equal protection of woman's rights to bodily integrity must be ready for the conflict that Trumpism will bring about as the nation is divided.
11
If 1 in 4 women will have an abortion by 45, then very roughly 1 in 4 men have partners who had an abortion at some point during their lives. What happens if abortion is outlawed, these children are born, and those men are exposed, and then pursued for child support. Men, their sons, their friends. THEN it becomes a real men's issue.
17
@Maureen Kennedy, and what about pursuing daddies, brothers, and uncles for forced-birth children due to incest? And who does the "state" pursue in the case of a rape where a suspect is never caught, or Kavanaughesque-like rah rah boys, who are legally insulated by their white wealthy male privilege from EVER being held accountable for raping teenaged girls and women after getting them drunk or drugging them?
Maybe the day of realization will come when Roe v. Wade is repealed.
Maybe the day of realization will come when we see the first Pro-Choice terror attack, and the terrorist says they did it in retaliation for every past attack against abortion providers.
But some day soon, everyone in this country will realize that these two groups cannot co-exist in the same political body, when one group thinks that the other group are Baby Murderers, and the second group thinks that the first group are Theocrats.
We will either begin the process of peaceful political disentanglement and slowly back away from each other, or we will end up with Civil War.
3
@Andrew, expect civil war. But it will be a majority of women toting guns. And as you know, the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
The south is inexorably sliding down to the level of 1950s, but without a president Eisenhower. Folks in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi want to have the life of "Leave it to Beaver" and "The Donna Reed show". I was told that in as many words when I lived in Georgia. Maybe secession of the deep south from the union isn't such a bad idea. They will lose all federal funding that the north provides and sink down to the status of a developing nation. Sadly there are many enlightened people still there and they will undoubtably suffer. We haven't hit rock bottom yet but it is coming. Not unlike the alcoholic's plight but people drunk on xenophobia, nationalism and bigotry.
12
@rbwphd
There are 25 states currently restricting female reproduction.
North Dakota, Utah, Arizona, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania, just to name a few, are not in the south.
4
No government or religion has the right to say what health choice's a woman should have.
12
Memo to SCOTUS : The Constitution of the United States is not a religious document. In considering any laws related to abortion any and all religious arguments are NOT allowed.
20
This country has certainly proved to be grown backwards. What is "pro-life" when the law makers are so willing to put people in prisons - the U.S. most prison incarceration, diminishing social welfare for citizens, and bloated and corrupted healthcare system where a sickness can essentially bankrupt you or slowly put you through cycles of addictions with approved "drugs" so you will be the cash cows. And then we have a good amount of God fearing population who cannot see beyond the thin veils of fake rhetorics in the disguise of sheep's clothing.
6
@Francesco
This will not be a popular position but I believe we have actually moved toward barbarism with over 600K abortions annually. If you're at all familiar with the mechanics of an abortion, it's hard to consider the procedure anything other than barbaric. Could there be anything more grotesque than dismembering a fetus?
There has to be a better way. The morning after pill, for example.
I wonder if this comment will even be posted. The details of abortion are rarely seen.
1
@AACNY, where do you get your statistics?
Possibly this retrograde movement will help to bring out some of those 90 million voters who found it a good choice to not vote in the last presidential election.
19
I used to classify myself as a moderate Republican, even made the mistake of voting for Trump in the 2016 election, but after seeing how the Republican party has finally showed it's truest colors and has descended straight into the insane party that is today, I no longer call myself a Republican. I now consider myself a Democrat. When I was a Republican, no Democrat could ever convince me to be on the other side, I was staunch in my belief that the Republican party was unfairly criticized as something it wasnt (too extreme). I supported abortion rights up until the fetus could feel pain (mid-second trimester), supported affordable healthcare and was a defender of Obamacare, supported gay marriage, supported prison reform, and supported equality between all sexes and races.
After making the worst decision in my life and voting for Trump, it didnt take me long to wake up to what the Republican party actually was becoming. Moderation has no place in this party anymore, and I realized that my views were much more compatible with the Demoncrat party. My point is, that it wasnt a Democrat who convinced me to leave the Republican party...no...it was the Republican party ITSELF that convinced to do so.
I can only hope that the few holdouts who consider themselves moderate Republicans finally follow suit and leave this party. I can only hope that these draconian abortion laws finally make other moderate Republicans WAKE UP and vote against Trump in 2020. Abortion IS a right.
15
The GOP have been marching down this path since the late 1970s with their embrace of conservative Christianity and Southern bigots. Republicans now depend on those demographics to win. During Obama's presidency the party openly embraced the emboldened radical, unhinged faction. The rhetoric and actions are nothing new. I appreciate your realignment, but it boggles my mind that some Republican voters are just now seeing the light.
3
Womb cops will offer great employment opportunities for many, universities plan to offer, Associate, Bachelor's, Masters, and Doctorate on uterus investigations. Private Prisons profits of female incarceration is exceptional.
Web site will be set up to anonymously report of secret abortions, and questionable miscarriages. Soon any female accused of deliberately terminating her pregnancy will have to prove her willingness to produce by getting pregnant again. The new morality will insure million of unwanted children to reinsure investors long term profit in our wonderful private prison industry.
7
We’ll burn it down before we let them take away our rights and impose criminal penalties. Let them try. And in case they haven’t figured it out yet, they just gave the majority of women the incentive to turn out to vote the out.
12
This is a tremendously complex moral and deeply personal question. Anyone who thinks there is a simple answer is in denial of the facts. If ending a pregnancy is murder, then all pregnancies must be protected regardless of circumstance. Why is an embryo created as a result of rape or incest be less valuable? Who is to judge that a mothers life is more important than survival of a fetus? If a law determines that abortion is murder than making exceptions undermines the law. Declaring abortion illegal, legislators put themselves in the position to make cruel decisions that severely impact womens lives, their communities and local economies.
Pro-Lifers claim that they are making a moral decision. Unwanted pregnancies are women's, therefore society's, burden to bear. Are they prepared to return to pre- Roe v Wade cycle of generational poverty and crime? I have a suggestion for a name for social services for low income mothers in states where abortion is illegal..... how about Planned Parenthood?
In Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court concluded that deciding when life begins is not in the court's jurisdiction. The pragmatic choice is making abortion illegal once a fetus can survive outside of the womb. Having an abortion early in a pregnancy is a decision for the pregnant woman, her moral advisor, and her healthcare provider. Society has no right to judge individual circumstances. Make no mistake, this is an imperfect choice. However, it is the most just in our imperfect human world.
7
Maybe if we are setting the Way Back Machine for Pre-Roe America it is time for chastity belts again?
Only this time they go on men and women will have the keys?
I mean how is that any more draconian and invasive as the laws forcing pregnancy and birth? Why does it always come down on women and not men?
4
Time for a sex strike. Women who want to preserve our rights to control our own bodies should refuse sex, indefinitely, until those rights are guaranteed in law. Until men understand that it will cost them their pleasure, too many simply won't care.
8
Six out of seven of the states that have created restrictive abortion laws in 2019 are in the top 10 states with highest weekly church attendance in America according to a Gallup poll from 2014 ( https://news.gallup.com/poll/181601/frequent-church-attendance-highest-utah-lowest-vermont.aspx )
# 1 Utah 51%
# 2 Mississippi 47%
# 3 Alabama 46%
# 5 Arkansas 45%
# 8 Kentucky 41%
#10 Georgia 39%
#24 Ohio 32%
5
A vast majority of Americans approve of abortion, still think women can make decisions about their own bodies.
If the evangelicals, so obsessed with women's sex lives, were equally as zealous about caring for the born, assuring that the born were housed, educated, health cared, and fed decently, then abortion bans might not be so painful.
But it would still sting: that any governmental entity has a say over someone's body is subjugation akin to slavery of the ugliest sort. That someone must submit to the governmental scrutiny of their most private behavior and decisions is a nightmare, worse than Brave New World, 1984, or Atwood's fantasy.
This country is doing a slo-mo crawl toward fascism courtesy of the GOP. It's hideous and must be stopped. We simply must rid ourselves of the republicans at every level before this country is ruined beyond repair.
The GOP is today's version of the goths, huns and other barbarians who rule by blunt force trauma to the head of culture and civilization, thought and science.
10
These abortion proposals are fine, as long as companion legislation requires that the men who impregnate these women financially support mother and child untll the child is an adult and if they do not do this, undergo wage garnishment or go to debtors prison until they do.
14
I believe that my fellow woman should have rights. But not the right to kill. That the woman in the womb should have the right to live, that their value isn´t dependent on how convenient they are to another person. Woman have the right to do what is right with their bodies, and the killing of a individual being with a separate DNA, blood type, brain, and genetic fingerprint...that definitely is not right. As for rape- let the rapist pay, not the innocent unborn. It has nothing to do with religion, supporting trump, female oppression, or whatever wing of the political spectrum you identify with- its a question of life or death for the innocent.
And although I can sense the upheaval i´m sending the comment section into, but it needed to be said.
4
@Mcky
No upheaval here. Your comment is just a time-worn excuse to force women into unwanted motherhood. IF you and every other person who feels this way would campaign tirelessly for funding for Planned Parenthood, better access to contraception, and access to money to support children born into poverty, then I might concede your point.
6
Ah, but they won't pass a law to ban the assault weapons that have killed innocent children at so many schools over the years?? Little, innocent children gunned down in Sandy Hook? Or those killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas in Florida? Why oh why do they value an unwanted fetus, who will be born to a woman who either cannot afford to raise that child or doesn't want it, or who was the victim of rape, more than the lives of living, human children, whose loving parents are now suffering? I'm sick of pro-lifers' claim that they care about babies. They simply do not.
19
The Evangelicals and the GOP are completely out of touch with the reality of this situation. They are accustomed to being able to squawk freely about how horrible abortion is in a country where it is freely available. Once the arbitrary cruelty and draconian nastiness of these laws become apparent, they may be forced to confront the reality of the situation they have created for themselves. When people's (white) daughters start dying at the hands of sleazy back-alley abortionists it will be pretty hard to call the tragedies "fake news."
6
Once again the Evangelicals are trying shove their beliefs down our throats. They are obviously not in the majority. Why are we letting them get away with this?
13
And people wonder why we teach Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale...the only positive I can glean from all of this is my female students in particular are enraged and discussing it openly in class and in the halls. They are wagging their fingers and lecturing boys in class discussions like I have never seen before. And my students are primarily African American, Hmong immigrants, Somali immigrants, African immigrants and Latinx. I am proud of their vocal support for their rights and the rights of other women. Apparently the party of small government only cares about that issue when it doesn't involved a woman's vagina or uterus. Kind of like they cared about deficits until they could pass a tax cut benefitting only the uber-wealthy. The endless hypocrisy of the GOP will NOT be lost on voters, and certainly not on voters under the age of 35. Good luck Republicans--your demographic is old, and older and increasingly so far right that no one young wants anything to do with your bizarre and antiquated anti-female ideas.
19
The probable death penalty caused by these new laws is for the woman who one way or another will try to get an abortion. Pre Roe, women died from both botched abortions or attempted self abort. I knew a young girl who died and another who was sexually abused by the man who while helping her, molested her.
4
Let's see. Corporations are persons. Fetuses are persons. SOME fully formed humans (females) are not persons or at least not as important as other persons.
Remember that American slaves were deemed "not persons."
Then, a law "allowed" them personhood, "allowed" them full humanity. Done with the stroke of a pen.
There are many ways to enslave a person. Making abortion illegal is putting us on a dangerous path. Think you are not affected? Just wait.
14
@You Might Know Me
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
5
Please keep in mind, Trump is your president because the Majority of Women who voted, chose this man to be the 45th president of the USA. I am Very Pro-Choice and this is sickening, however remember to place the blame for this where it belongs, on women! Elections have consequences!!!!!
3
@JMac
Seriously? That's what you care about right now? Women getting the blame? No one is blaming you specifically, so don't take it so personally. Self-awareness is key.
2
The majority of white women, maybe.
Welcome to the right wing utopia. Coat hanger abortions, suicides and incarceration. More floods, droughts, fires, hurricanes, tornadoes and heat waves. A few super rich people, a diminished middle class and a working class living barely above poverty. People dying because they cannot afford medical care. Children going to school in fear for their lives. This is apparently making America great again.
14
These decisions are made by men - most of whom wouldn't wear a condom because 'it doesn't feel good'.
15
“Decades of right wing politics have led up to this moment, .....”. Not true! What’s led up to this moment are the more than 50 million (probably more than 60 million) abortions that have occurred in the US since Roe v. Wade in 1973. The argument that abortions were to be “Legal, Safe and Rare” ended up being not being “rare” at all.
2
It's not about the babies.
3
This is a healthcare debate. We need to turn the tables on these "pro-life" groups. As many have posted before, their concern for life ends at birth.
Democratic candidates should not engage in an abortion debate. That just plays into their hands. They should simply state unequivocally that infanticide is illegal, and they do not approve of killing babies. That is why they support maternity care and full access to quality healthcare to reduce maternal and infant mortality rates in this country.
When asked about the rights of the unborn, they should immediately say that all children born today are looking at a terrible future, burdened by unsustainable levels of college debt, no living wage, wage stagnation, and runaway climate change. What kind of world are we leaving to our children?
The pro-life movement is incredibly weak on all issues of actual life. They are incredibly weak on all issues of women's health, children's health, education, food quality, infant mortality, maternal mortality, even the very existence of life on the planet put in peril by runaway climate change.
Do not fight pro-life on their terms such as whether it is ok to kill a baby. That is just feeding the lie that the only important issue is what happens inside the womb and after that everything is just great.
Hit them where they are weak, which is just about everywhere.
14
What truly annoys me is that we have to waste mindshare and time on what should be settled law to protect women when we have climate crisis, the economic pillaging of our country, and other problems to be focusing on.
531
@Roger Reynolds
Democracy is a messy business, isn't it? Nothing seems to stay the same, even perhaps Roe v. Wade, and with all that "economic pillaging" to attend to, too.
14
@Roger Reynolds, But it isn't "settled law" is it? It's being overturned at the state level more and more every day. So while I appreciate your point that there are other problems to focus on, I think it's a mistake to mark Roe v. Wade as "settled" when it is constantly under attack, and successfully so.
19
@JL22
Actually, the way our system has always worked before, this should be settled law. But the times they are a changin', aren't they?
15
The war on women continues. These state legislatures view the female body primarily as a baby making machine that must not be tampered with, once that fetus displays a heartbeat. And now, even when that pregnancy resulted from rape or incest.
Since the polls indicate that a sizable majority of Americans support the fundamental right of a woman to control her own body, these new laws will face fierce opposition. One wonders how perceptive the members of the Supreme Court will be in explaining why a position supported only by a minority of Americans should dictate and limit the fundamental rights of half the American population.
8
It seems ironic to me that the same folks who do not want to fund contraception, food stamps, child daycare, Medicaid, early learning, etc., insist that every conception must progress to birth even in the face of adverse circumstances of the family or the baby itself. And if Nature calls a halt will the mother be blamed?
Have they ever seen a pregnant 9yo? I have. Have they ever dealt with a pregnant 12yo with 4 sexually transmitted infections? I have. Her father had been renting her out to his friends. Have they ever known a 20yo with 9 children? I have. She had an abortion with #10 and had her tubes tied.
We cannot allow the sanctimoniously comfortable dictate to those in dire straits. If everyone of these would come forth to adopt the un-aborted child, I would applaud. BUT I supported a woman to chose adoption, and I found a couple eager to love her baby. Imagine my shock when the nurses in the labor-and -delivery suite were so critical and unkind because she was "giving away her own baby." It was a gift of love from all angles. Her circumstances were difficult, and she wanted the best for her daughter.
Of all choices, the decision to have a child is the most personal.
We cannot stand for MEN in black robes to make those decisions for us.
779
@Kay Craft - These apparent contradictions shouldn't seem odd at all to you. Rabidly anti-choice conservatives don't care about babies. Period. They care about power and control over others. Treat them the way they would treat you if you reached for their guns; with vicious opposition and zero tolerance.
77
@Kay Craft
Beautifully stated.
39
@Kay Craft
The least among us is the greatest. It is everycecent person's duty to protect those who cannot protect themsseelves
15
I know that a lot of people will read that text from the Alabama Law and think nothing of it, but I can't help but think its very strange that lawmakers can refer to fetuses and embryos IN A LAW THEY HAVE WRITTEN AND PASSED as babies. The genocidal language is inflamatory enough, but actually calling them babies when that isn't the correct medical term? It really does sound like a law written by religious fundamentalists who are determined to be as provocative as possible with their terminology.
But of course if you believe that human life begins at conception, then none of those distinctions matter.
But aren't there legal definitions of "personhood" that are stricter and could've been used in such a law?
7
With such gleeful interest in being punitive, where are the consequences for the men who participated in these pregnancies? No woman experiencing an unintended pregnancy got there on her own. Should we impose equally draconian measures for them? ( castration? Enforced impotence?) Certainly if we are heading down the slope that sex is for procreation only, there is no justification for viagra outside a marriage, or for one in which the ability to conceive has passed.
Rather than frame this issue as one of women’s rights- clearly not working- how about some clarity on the precedent these laws set for all, including men? I bet once these entitled, self righteous “ lawmakers” understand the potential impact to THEIR lives, there might be a pause. And if not, every woman should make it a point to be sure they understand those consequences.
16
To make sure such laws are applied uniformly and fairly, anti-abortion organizations' female members should pilot the approach for ensuring the laws can be carried out to their fullest. Oh, and their daughters, including minors.
All, without exception, will be enrolled until menopause is medically confirmed. They will be required to provide monthly proof that they did not miss a period. The cost of such proof will be out-of-pocket. There will be fines if data is not provided in a timely manner. There will be fines if tests show the proof is faked. If a period is missed or late, further documentation and immediate, supervised test for pregnancy is mandated, at enrollee's expense. They will then be subject to monitoring for the next nine months, at enrollee's expense. Failure to give birth after a fetal heartbeat is detected will result in mandatory investigation, and determination of responsibility will be provided to the program management, and to authorities if criminal prosecution is warranted.
If any of this seems intrusive, unfeeling, might be costly to you financially or seems like unwarranted outside intrusion in a very personal matter, please be assured that this is a program necessary to make really sure that every time an egg is fertilized, nothing stops that baby from being born.
Mention that all costs are at enrollee expense are, of course, because government shouldn't be involved in women's healthcare...
14
W. Post May 16 "Missouri’s GOP-led Senate joins wave of states --GA, Miss, Ohio--- to ban abortions when doctors can detect a fetal heartbeat."
This is an ominous " wave of states" -- a religious, authoritarian, anti human rights wave.
it's making plain what was more hidden. It shows how far and wide the battle lines are drawn. How we need protection from religious zealots, and an authoritarian leader ---Tsar Trump and his GOP court.
The Democrats' task is more clear---to make the US a modern democracy in line with international standards of advanced countries---where abortion is not contested, and religious is not a political force.
The US can use religion to manipulate politics, more than in other secular democracies, where 'health care for all' has real meaning for citizens, and women are more protected.
The US is an outlier. It's reported that about 25% of the world's population lives in countries with highly restrictive abortion laws, mostly in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
Now the US is trying to join that company.
We see now how religion has been used to get Trump into power. It's getting plainer every day---every hour.
The GOP has planned carefully---set up the Supreme Court (they blocked Obama's nominee from hearings) and then designed the anti--choice case to achieve their goal.
Step by step, methodical, zealous, focused. And scary.
This is going to focus the campaigns of the 2020 candidates.
Are the democrats up to this challenge?
13
You don't have to have read "The Handmaid's Tale" to see where Trump, Lindsey Graham, and Mitch McConnell are taking this country, especially for the rights of women and minorities. And so to those who voted for a third-party candidate rather than for Hillary Clinton, claiming there was no difference between her and Trump, how is that working out for you? And to those who are considering doing the same in 2020, I implore you to read the papers, watch the news, and ask yourselves if this is the country you want. There is but one goal for 2020 to protect women's rights, minority rights, and the moral standing of the United States (to the extent there is any left), and that is to defeat Trump. Period.
18
I tire of the continuing use of the phrase---unborn babies--a decidedly oxymoronic defense from anti-choice folk. I will always subscribe to the writings of Dr. Leslie White, a professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan. Many of his essays appear in the journals of semantics and the one we located in a Colorado school district in the 70s, to include in a course in the Language Arts department in Semantics, was entitled, "The Symbol." Dr. White asserts that a child is not a human being until it can participate in its culture. He cited the late Helen Keller as a vivid example. Keller, made deaf and blind by an infection when she was less than two years old, was eventually taught to communicate by her tutor, Annie Sullivan, who pressed "symbols" into her hands. The scene at the well in "The Miracle Worker," when Helen finally grasps that Sullivan is teaching her the word for water, is rightly convincing. A no "unborn baby" can participate in its culture and even once delivered, is still unable to participate in its culture and must be cared for and taught. One is able to find numerous entries under Dr. White's name and ample references to Darwin. Of course, I suspect that many anti-choicers are also anti=evolutionists. The ignorance and/or disrespect of science is destroying a once proud and progressive nation.
7
@Russell Manning - if an untaught Helen Keller didn't meet your criteria for "human" than your objection about -unborn babies- is pointless, since you present born babies as also not-yet-human.
So what's your point? If you are trying to support abortion as there being no human harmed, you are greatly expanding the definition into what is unequivocally homicide, from the pre-term area which is where the debate about abortion exists.
@b fagan I do support a woman's right to choose and to oversee the health of her own body. My premise was to denounce the growing attempts to make us feel that a baby is being killed, that, in essence, abortion is murder. That makes an embryo/fetus "human"? NO!
Just calm down. Read Roe. The trimester reasoning is used. Viability is the Key to the state’s interest. The discussions will turn, primarily on this. New genetic testing can Dx sever impairment well in advance of viability. Let’s stop dealing in what ifs but concentrate on reality.
Overturning abortion rights is a cover for putting women back in their place which is somewhere way beneath men. That is the bottom line no matter how men and the far right try to spin it. White men are losing control and they do not like it.
I grew up in the Deep South in the 50s and early 60's where I witnessed two pregnant young women forced into unhappy marriages. Basically no matter what potential the young women had and their potential was great, it was limited after that--abusive marriages ending in divorce. They were not treated any better than Hester Prynne.
Later as a young nursing student at the university, I will never forget the night in the ER at a county hospital when a young teenage girl came into the ER with acute pelvic pain. She had tried to abort herself to avoid the shame of a pregnancy "out of wedlock." Only someone in total desperation would stick the end of a stretched clothes hangar into her uterus.
The wealthy don't care. Their daughters will still get their abortions. They'll fly them first class to another country.
As for the far right women seeking abortion bans, they have been drinking too much of the kool-aid. Do they want to raise a rapist's child?
19
This is a 100% intractable issue.
Both sides have a solidly moral and ethic basis.
Hundreds of millions of dollars and countless person-hours will continue to be wasted...a huge resource that could be redirected towards to helping children and mothers in need.
Neither side will ever give up.
Which is why compromise is the only solution for moving forward. And Roe is compromise.
2
None of this would be happening if Trump hadn't had two Supreme Court nominees,
That wouldn't have happened if Trump hadn't been elected,
And that wouldn't have happened without Bernie Sanders.
This must be what "Our Revolution" looks like...
9
None of this would have happened if Democrats in Congress had passed laws that assured the right to an abortion for any reason at any time. Why did Democrats fail to do that, especially during the first two years of Obama’s presidency? What were they working on instead that was so much more important?
2
Let's suggest to the tech bros at Uber and Lyft that they should defend the right to choose by giving women in Georgia, Louisiana, and Alabama free rides to an abortion provider in a neighboring state. They should also publicly get on board with giving people free rides to polling places, as they did in 2018. Businesses that cater to millennials and Gen Z need to take a stand to keep those generations from being disenfranchised.
2
We are well on our way to creating a separate class of people -- pregnant women -- whose health, well-being, and freedom will be subject to the control of people other than themselves. These hyper-restrictive laws will undermine women's healthcare far beyond access to abortion services. They will be used to justify discrimination in employment and social services, and to diminish fundamental rights to privacy and autonomy. All it takes is zealous, ambitious public officials armed with ambiguous, sloppily drafted legislation to get the job done. It's not a mistake that laws like those in Alabama and Georgia are as poorly written as they are -- that's the point. They create confusion and allow hypocrites to establish precedents that will compromise women's equality across the board.
7
This was inevitable. As medical science has progressed, the definition of a viable baby has moved ever closer to conception. Take away the aspects of morality and religion and you still have the scientific fact that today’s technology can save babies that used to be legally abortable.
5
Most, if not all, premature babies that survive are within the third trimester.
3
Just thinking...if these states outlaw abortion under any circumstances leaving women no choice but to give birth, should these states also become liable for any grievous injury or death of a woman giving birth against her will?
Should they be liable for medical expenses and the the costs associated with the raising of these unwanted children?
Given that the states have not inserted any stipulations regarding the responsibilities of the father, will each state be in loco parentis to these unwanted children?
It would make sense that anyone forcing an unwanted act should be ultimately responsible going forward for the result of that act.
Likely the courts will be the arbiters of these conundrum.
8
It takes a woman's body to grow a baby. These kinds of laws legally co-opt a woman's body to serve another "person", under fetal personhood laws. How can that possibly be allowed under law? What other laws do we have that authorize the bodily conscription of an entire sub-segment of the population in service of another sub-segment? It seems so clear to me that this is both discriminatory and morally outrageous. Is this not an angle the Supreme Court should be considering? If these laws are based on the concept of "fetal personhood", does not that necessarily place a woman's personhood in a subservient position? What is the legal justification for that?
Until there's some advanced world in which doctors and scientists can safely extract an unwanted embryo from a woman's body and grow it in an external environment- until a woman's body is not required to grow a baby- I don't understand any of this.
14
@ksmac The legal justification is very simple: If you eschew multiple avenues of birth control, you know that a person will grow inside you, and will require a safe environment, in order to survive and thrive. Already, it’s a crime to many things, while you’re pregnant: consume certain substances, eat certain foods, work in certain jobs, travel to certain areas. Those limits on your life are predictable, temporary, and MUCH less oppressive than torture or murder. An abortion-ban ends the injustice of treating pre-born children as expendable “obstacles” to the American Dream of an unaccountable life.
But Hillary's emails!
20
Let’s overturn Roe so we can finally have a real fight over abortion.
Red states have effectively already banned abortions and the blue states will still allow it.
But without Roe, Republican moderates will finally have to stop paying lip service to ending legal abortion. One of those “be careful what you wish for because you might get it” moments.
For four decades, pro-business Republicans have been getting a free ride on Roe’s back. Social conservatives who generally support the Democratic economic agenda (including a stronger social safety net) have long used abortion as reason to vote Republican.
Overturning Roe may be be what it takes for social conservatives to think twice about supporting the Republicans.
Their absence could well be the margin that gives the Democrats the win in Senate races in states that are otherwise out of reach.
As populations drain out of Plains and Upper Midwest, Democrats are at risk for never electing another US Senator. And without the Senate, the Democratic agenda is dead.
Returning abortion to the states, where it already is, may give us a fighting chance to control the federal government.
Sacrificing Roe is well worth it if Democrats get control of the national agenda.
3
@Chris
So, what's the time frame for the process you describe playing out? How many girls and women in how many states will have their lives and well-being compromised before we reach the nirvana you're envisioning? Women are people, human beings in good standing, and in theory at least, we have the same basic human rights the US acknowledges for people who are not women. I'm a little tired of proposals asking women to sign up as collateral damage in the fight for Democratic control of the Senate. Democratic leaders need to be more active and vocal in their support for women's rights and our access to comprehensive healthcare (with all that that entails). The needle-threading around abortion and expectations that women's issues can wait is how we've ended up where we are today. The party we've supported needs to step up for us. And now's the time.
2
@Chris But you assume these people are rational, which they are not. Most of them also believe that the earth was created in 4004 BC.
2
@Maggie Mae,
Roe is now just posturing. We ritualistically promise to uphold Roe no matter the political cost while the facts on the ground are that we already live in a post-Roe world.
Time for the Democrats to face reality and make new plans. The old ways no longer work.
1
These laws do not surprise me. Those with the potential to be most impacted are also those least likely to vote. Therefore, their voices are simply disregarded for those who scream the loudest. In this case, the screamers are the religious right. The best way to do something is to register to vote and then, VOTE. No candidate is perfect but remaining voiceless is simply not an option. That's how we arrived at Trump. Women, get out and vote. Vote out the men who want to control your bodies. This is not a fight about babies. It is a fight to punish women with pregnancy if they dare to have sex. If it was about babies, we would have excellent prenatal care for all, a focus on early childhood education, and a commitment to eradicate poverty. But it's not about that at all. Show the men and women who want to move us to the dark ages that this is unacceptable. Put your cellphone down and stop tweeting. Get out and vote and make your friends do the same. Work to fight gerrymandering, work to make every vote count, and make those who want us to remain voiceless accountable. Vote them out of office. This is how change occurs.
10
Should be a NYT Pick!
1
This is more than warfare on women, it is class warfare as well. Those with money have always had the means to deal with an unfortunately timed pregnancy.
If, as seems very possible, the Supreme Court makes this a states right issue, that's the end of abortion access for the lower income women in red states. How are they going to manage a trip to states where abortion is still going to be available. If the Court caves completely, the well off will still be able to have themselves a medical vacation, eh?
4
@uwteacher Tell me again how unaffordable prophylactics are....
Judging how many conservatives ignore deaths at the border and cheer the death penalty, I don’t think it’s about concern for the unborn. What the battle against abortion is really about is extreme hatred of liberal causes. If it wasn’t, they would be consistent in their opposition to all killing. Ironically, though, many of these same people are the first to support war.
9
It will all be temporary. This Court is in the process of destroying respect for precedent.
Expect a future when more liberal judges will quickly undo the damage this Court has and will do for some time to come.
Canada and the US both have abortion and same-sex marriage rights (albeit better in Canada for both). The difference? No one talks about repealing either right in Canada as opposed to the constant fighting about it in the US... I'm glad I moved to Canada. At least the government here focuses on real problems that affect people's everyday lives.
17
@Robert
Nor are they removing restrictions on 3rd trimester abortions as NYS recently did.
The saddest thing about this is that even if Roe is successfully overturned, it won't actually stop people from getting abortions. Wealthy women will simply travel out of state or to Canada to have the procedure done. Poor women will self-induce or go to an unregulated, unsafe, unregistered practitioner and risk their lives. It has always happened this way.
If "pro-life" people really cared, they'd take evidence-based approaches to reducing the number of abortions in this country; comprehensive sex education would be easiest. But these same people insist in an abstinence based system- as if they could stop teenagers from having sex by not telling them how it works in the age of Google. These people are not operating in a rational world, all they know is what they want and damn the consequences.
5
Pro Choice!!
2
What actually happens when a country bans abortion.
Take a look at a real-life test case, the results were devastating.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/16/what-actually-happens-when-a-country-bans-abortion-romania-alabama/
7
@angel98
btw: Even this despot, cruel and savage as he was, didn't punish woman for their abuser's crimes, there were waivers for rape and incest.
Anti-Abortion but no hesitation to shame and disown pregnant teens
6
Men who vote in anti-abortion laws like this should never get sex again.
13
I wonder what the population is in Alabama and Georgia of homeless and hungry children. I know these numbers are high in Missouri. Ignoring these children, while God-like righteous, control-freak meddling in the personal lives of women, constitutes one of the real crimes against humanity.
7
There will be no post-Roe America, period.
“No matter what men [and some women] think, abortion is a fact of life. Women have always had them; they always have and they always will. Are they going to have good ones or bad ones? Will the good ones be reserved for the rich, while the poor women go to quacks?” — Shirley Chisholm, Unbought And Unbossed
8
@Zareen
Thanks. We could use her wisdom and strength in this era.
3
Strangely, the right wing and their evangelical followers are not outraged that their is no law against masturbation. After all, Onan was killed by God for "spilling his seed on the ground." Think of all the precious zygotes that will never live because of masturbation! Clearly a crime, a mass murder in one stroke (so to speak.)
10
@John
zygote: a diploid cell resulting from the fusion of two haploid gametes; a fertilized ovum.
How then,may I ask , did this individual male form a zygote without the female gamete? Also you may want to read the context of the biblical passage from which that phrase was taken.
@John
Zygote: a diploid cell resulting from the fusion of two haploid gametes; a fertilized ovum.
Where, may I ask, did this individual male get a female gamete?
The point is divine judgment, not science. That's exactly the point of anti-choicers.
1
Here is a theory I have: Many many years ago the male horde leaders decided they needed lots of workers so that these very same male horde leaders could amass lots of wealth for themselves.
To accomplish this, these male horde leaders made the strict rule That females should have lots of babies, babies who would become workers.
[Oh, and also these male horde leaders capitalized on their own and other males primitive powerful urges to have impulsive sexual intercourse.]
As the years went on, the males who were "the leaders" codified this practice into "religions" everybody was and has to observe. These males did not give a tinker's dam about the females or the children. To this day, these types of males are just in it for unnecessary amounts of money and wealth for themselves. Female children, girls, teenagers and women of all ages suffer because of this.
So now in Alabama a doctor can go to jail for a longer period than the individual who rapes a woman. Should not be to surprising, after all this is the state that came thisclose to electing a child predator to the senate.
13
If you want to believe in supernatural beings and ancient mythology and deny science and reality, that's your business, but don't legislate me by your irrational beliefs or force them on me in any way. I can and will make up my own mind without your preachments and theology.
8
@JW
Actually, what you call belief in "supernatural beings and ancient mythology" is a protected right. They realized people like yourself would see it that way.
Many forget the there's this other thing known as the Free Exercise Clause.
I wonder if in his dirty past, if Trump got one or more of his girl friends pregnant and they had an abortion.
7
If Alabama wants to criminalize all forms of abortion, including for cases of incest and rape, then let's see them penalize the rapists and relatives to force them to assume financial responsibility for the pregnancy they caused.
OT law is clear: a seducer must pay a sizable fine to the father of the girl whom he seduced.
Also since rape is punished by death in the OT one could argue that the rapist's progeny unwanted and forced on his victim also should die.
This just proves that there is nothing more dangerous than bible thumpers who cite scripture in a self servingly selective way.
PS In the Bible, seduction, such as incest, is mutually and mandates a fine. Rape carries no fine but rather the death penalty for the rapist.
3
As someone else said: If a fetus is now a person with all rights, do pregnant women get to vote twice?
In any case, welcome to the new American Sharia. It's not good enough for my fellow Christians to be allowed to practice their religion in peace and freedom. They insist we all live by their fundamental, sectarian version of the Bible, contrary to all that the constitution stands for. And now they have a dolt for their president, who will give them their theocracy in exchange for endless adoration.
I guess it's not possible to be an evangelical churchgoer without taking over the whole nation. When ultimate power over others is available, these supposed followers of Jesus instantly jump at their chance, no matter what those silly red words warn you about.
12
The same Americans who push extreme positions on behalf of unborn fetuses are silent as more and more kids are murdered in schools because of US gun laws.
I am unable to see how such hairs can be split.
804
@Not My Potus Ever
They're also the ones ensuring our schools don't get funded.
59
@Not My Potus Ever
It's easy fighting a straw man, isn't it? Many people like me object to killing regardless of age or location.
2
@Not My Potus Ever
One could too easily turn that around and say the same people who are outraged over kids being murdered are silent on over 600,000 abortions per year.
That's the problem with these silly comparisons.
1
A woman's body has never truly belonged to her- in any society. Restrictions (and authorities) are as old as humanity. That anyone is surprised- is the surprise.
4
One way to have men at least partly share the responsibilities (and penalties) with women who have an unwanted pregnancy but are not allowed by the state to have an abortion, is to have mandatory prison sentences for men who impregnate women out of wedlock. The wedding must have occurred prior to pregnancy as determined by testing. I am sure that the evangelical religious states like Alabama and the majority male Catholic Supreme Court Justices would agree that sex should only occur for procreation and within the context of pre-existing Holy Matrimony.
4
Under this new Alabama legislation, doctors treating women who're miscarrying or have miscarried risk being prosecuted for a felony, with the prospect of being locked up for the rest of their lives.
6
If child-bearing age women essentially become state property, who is next? Make no mistake that making America great again is about a return to the time when wealthy white men were the ONLY people whose lives mattered.
6
It is the right to Birth movement that is driving this, not right to Life. Right to Life implies right to a decent life and this is something that the Evangelical Republicans would tell you is in the hands of God post-birth, or worse case scenario; after a life of deprivation on Earth, a wonderful post-life with their Savior (possibly not yours depending on how you spent that life here).
That is really what is at the crux of this matter. It is an imposition of religion on our secular state by a strong and organized minority group now abetted by a corrupt political party.
On the other hand if these religious zealots believe that abortion destroys the soul, then they better take a better look at God's big plan; studies are now showing that there are as many miscarriages as there are abortions. (of the pregnancies in 2010, 65% resulted in live births, 17% were miscarried and 18% ended in abortion.) It is further thought because early miscarriages often go undetected my the majority of pregnant mothers, that miscarriages occur in the majority of pregnancies.
So either "souls" are dying left or right or "soulification" occurs at birth. That's right; the Bible has nothing to say on that matter. The men that wrote it had no idea...
3
@Bill Cullen, Author
Forced-Birth Movement. That is what they seek. Forcing birth. Let's call it what it is.
My daughter teaches AP English Comp and speech to rural high schools in our area. When they submitted their first drafts, she rolled her eyes. Three boys were doing their speeches on "Abortion is murder." On election day, our local paper ran on it's front page not policy differences between candidates but who supported Right to Life and who was a heathen baby murderer. Folks around these parts have no problem with their babies having babies. They've already taught their kids in school that condoms don't work and birth control causes cancer. There really isn't any stigma around teens having babies. They're looked upon a heroes.
7
"Post-Roe America Won’t Be Like Pre-Roe America. It Will Be Worse."
Does the NYT really believe that, if Roe is overturned, New York State will prohibit abortion? Or that California will? Or that any other blue state will? Alabama's anti-abortion laws may be harsher post-Roe than they were pre-Roe, but, overall, legal abortion will be much more available than it was in 1972, to say nothing of 1962, when it was illegal everywhere in the country.
1
And how soon before we see states prohibiting women from crossing state lines to get abortions? Will an abortion legally obtained in one state still be a crime if the woman resides in a state with more restrictive limitations?
Still am puzzled about Alabama. Republicans and the governor repeat ad nauseum about the sanctity of all life yet they still have capital punishment and don't hesitate to use it. Hypocrites, all.
9
I am concerned about the health of women in Alabama who are not pregnant. I was diagnosed and treated for breast cancer when I was quite young; took tamoxifen for five years, when I was premenopausal. Because the risk of uterine cancer is elevated as a consequence of this treatment, any minor abnormality required uterine aspiration. My question; would an Alabama gynecologist need to delay a diagnostic procedure in a case like mine, in order to establish that no very early stage pregnancy existed(itself a problem, due to tamoxifen)? Would this kind of hesitation put women in danger? Also, I expect pathology labs will be deluged with uterine tissue that must be examined for very early microscopic pregnancies, if this abortion ban is to be enforced with penalties; will this in turn delay diagnostic pathology for all women? How does this work in a way that does not profoundly impact the health of all women? “Personhood” for the blastula may well dictate hazard for many women who are not even pregnant.
8
It is strange to me that anti-abortion proponents think that you need an abortion doctor to perform an abortion. When have been performing abortions on themselves and each other for thousands of years. The main result of such legislation, in my opinion, will be a surge in impoverished teenaged girls showing up in ERs and morgues with infections and abortion tourism from affluent girls. I’d be interested on the impact this will have on the overstressed foster care system as well.
8
In the post-Roe world, if a woman has an abortion in a state that permits them, will she be subject to the death penalty if she moves to Texas, or imprisonment in other states? How about legal residents of Texas who go to other states to procure an abortion?
Will doctors who provide an abortion to residents of Texas, Georgia , Alabama be extradited to those states to stand trial?
This patchwork approach will not work; if Roe is overturned there will be a full court press to criminalize abortions nationally. With a Republican President, it would only take Republican majorities in both houses.
3
@Terence Gaffney
The "proper" solution to the abortion problem is to lock all women and doctors in prison. It is the only way to guarantee that no abortions are performed.
I believe post Roe will be better than pre Roe. The legal landscape will be worse but the technological and political landscape will be much better. We can realistically set up underground railroads to get vulnerable women to safer places, distribute plan B and RU486 clandestinely along with contraceptives .
We have communication ability like never before to strike back with protests and boycotts. If the pro choice community stops relying on judges and legislators to protect our rights, and starts mobilizing people, it could be a struggle for women's rights where we stop settling for "almost equal" and demand the real thing. Otherwise we'll always be fighting rear guard attacks by an enemy with endless resources.
2
If and when the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, our country will experience a schism between men and women that will tear our country apart.
To those people who believe God has mandated that abortion is wrong, you are entitled to your beliefs, as I am to mine. What does God say about insisting that a woman who was raped or became pregnant through incest must do? Do these women get no say in whether they will go through a pregnancy that tells the world they got pregnant somehow, get no say in whether or not to go through a painful process at birth? Do you with your religious beliefs agree to pay for costs during pregnancy, childbirth, the first 18 years of the child's life? Do you agree that if your daughter gets pregnant at age 12, you and your daughter have no say in whether or not she will carry that baby to term even if the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest?
Are you that morally certain that your God calls the shots for everyone, and are you willing to shoulder the burdens for that precious human being that the mother didn't choose to raise?
Pregnant women must be able to obtain DNA tests, and fathers must be required to pay their share. How would they feel if they had to carry a label identifying them as the father while women go through the very public process of pregnancy with all the questions, work ramifications, etc. that go along with public sharing?
16
Bodily autonomy means that I can’t be forced to do something as benign as donate blood in order to save someone’s life, even if I was the only person who could do so. Likewise, when I die, my organs can’t be used to save someone’s life unless I expressly permit it. Yet, in Alabama and other states, I can be forced to give birth because the non-viable fetus is a “person?”
29
Good point! I haven't seen this line of reasoning before.
In my Electronics class, I would sometimes draw a schematic of a receiver/transmitter with a made up symbol that looked like a elongated coat hanger (Because this was usually seen adorning vehicles in The rougher neighborhoods, like East Palo alto where The good junkyards WERE located ).
Noel, out of respect and for social political reasons (& out of respect),I think I’m going to abandon that schematic symbol!
This is nothing more than an all-out war on women. It is a disgusting and evil diminishing of womanhood. How disgusting this is in the 21st century. Give me required male vasectomies and castration for rape.
33
Not to worry. There will still be a Europe providing abortion on demand for the rich.
4
Women have chosen to have a baby - or not - since the dawn of time.
Think of Moses in the rushes, I think that mom placed her baby in a basket, pushed it off down the river, and thought "no way, no how, can't do it, won't do it, and you can't make me."
Women have always exercised their right (when ever possible) to have or not have a baby, or to set it outside the cave for the wolves if they could not abort.
Archeologists have found plants capable of early resumption of menses in a pregnant woman in the pyramids, but it had been picked to extinction. Hmmm, what does that say?
Making a choice about an unplanned pregnancy (studies show that over 50% of all pregnancies are unintended), whether to joyfully accept, terminate, give up for adoption should be the woman's (and ideally the partners) choice.
NO ONE ELSES.
We have always chosen, now our government wants to not only say we can't, but incarcerate us if we do. Wow, what has my (our) country come to?
15
"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another..."
10
Have they outlawed women's shoes yet?
12
Will they come for women's birth control next?
19
@Jennifer
I thought they already were through their "religious" exceptions to contributing to the insurance costs of women who want it.
13
@Jennifer
It doesn't matter if they come for birth control if women are not using it effectively.
1
I would have fewer problems with this ban (although I think it is wrong on all counts) if they ensured that there was comprehensive health care for the women forced to undergo the discomfort, pain, inconvenience and costs of giving birth to an unwanted child and then guaranteeing that the child would have adequate food, clothing, shelter and education throughout its life. These states though seem to be doing exactly the opposite, removing health care and access to adequate funds to ensure that any children are well supported. The states concerned have the lowest standards in the country and are doing everything they can to ensure that their citizens remain in poverty. Truly a return to the medieval dark ages.
15
@Tony N
Are you aware of death rate of women due to pregnancy and birth. We might as well be a 3rd world country.
1
@K D
Of course I am. The USA comes in at 138th in the World rankings (according to the CIA) below such developed countries as Puerto Rica and Kazakhstan. I am sure that the likes of Alabama rank well below even that deplorable level.
1
When young people expressed their (understandable) lack of enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton, I always pointed out that, for better or worse, she would be gone in four or eight years, but that Trump's right-wing activist justices/judges would be around for decades. Alas, many millennials (including many Bernie supporters) stayed home on election day and we are all facing the dire consequences. Perhaps the Democrats and left-leaning independents will belatedly learn, as the GOP has for decades, that its all about the courts.
37
I hope to see more articles and comments about how terrible things were before Roe. And yes it could get worse. Before the 1965 Griswold decision it was illegal for married couples to use birth control in CT. The court cited "the clear effect.. to deny access to medical assistance and up to date information" and a "right to marital privacy" in the decision to overturn the law. But we seem to be right back there denying access and privacy in intimate affairs again.
In addition the new laws draw on fetal personhood. There is no scientific definition of when a fetus becomes a legal person so these regressive laws rely on belief that is derived from a specific religious belief. I am hoping someone can explain to me how making everyone follow a specific religious belief is not a violation of the establishment clause of the Constitution.
23
@Susan R
It is indeed a violation. And the "sanctity" of life is not a concept that is reassuring to the un-religious among us.
1
@Susan R
Big mistake to focus on pre-Roe times, especially coat hangers. That's symbolic to an older cohort of women. Younger women won't necessarily relate because (a) they are not being forced into pregnancies and (b) they have morning after pills.
The pro-choice arguments need to move into this century.
Ladies, get your tubes tied while you still can. The highway to our enslavement has just opened.
12
Meanwhile, the wives and daughters of the men who voted for these abominations, will get on planes and take short "vacations" to Canada or Europe.
30
I still do not comprehend how a Constitutional right, ie: Roe vs. Wade, can be amended by individual states. Does the US Constitution not outweigh individual states' laws?
8
@PJMD It does, but many are claiming that there is no true Constitutional basis for the rights enumerated in Roe; and that therefore it was wrongly decided.
Nowhere in the Constitution is the alleged "Right to Privacy" upon which this decision was based explicitly stated; the Justices in the previous case admitted that it was an implied right. That being the case, it is possible that a decision will eventually be made that the 10th Amendment applies here and that the Federal government must leave medical regulation up to the several states.
Until and unless this is decided in that way, however, Roe is the law of the land and your statement is correct.
6
@PJMD,
Nope. States may challenge Supreme Court decisions by enacting their own laws which can be challenged all the way up to the SC. In most cases, federal law trumps state law, unless the state law exceeds the federal law, as in minimum wage laws. Thank the Lord, Roe V. Wade was never codified into federal law.
1
I see so many people saying this comes down to controlling women, but I grew up in a conservative area. Many women there are very anti-abortion. For those who believe in the soul, a fetus is a person. To them it really is murder. As an atheist I have no moral objection to abortion, but I can also see their side of it and why they will absolutely never compromise. Perhaps the only way to argue with them would be to point out that the bible has (as far as I know) no explicit explanations for when something has a soul. They cite the passage "You knit me together in my mother's womb" as their example. But they ignore the problems with assuming a soul is even at conception. Are identical twins a single soul? Or does one keep the original and the other get a new one? Or does the soul split? If that is the case the soul is divisible? What about when eggs fuse? There are examples of people who are a mix of genetics. Do they have two souls? To me it makes more sense to say once a fetus has substantial neural development, then it makes more sense to give it personhood.
6
@Dan
Matthew 6:5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
Matthew 12:21 Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's
The stuff you are talking about, only applies to YOU. Read your own Bible and stop trying to make others adhere to how you think.
1
@Dan Or maybe point out to them that their idea that an embryo or fetus has a soul is based on their particular religious beliefs, which while fine for them to act on, do not apply to all. Do they want to submit to the religious beliefs of anything except Christianity? If not, how hypocritical of them to expect us to submit to theirs.
1
@Fran Taylor
1.) I clearly say I'm an atheist.
2.) I think it's up to people to think through the logical conclusions that can be drawn from their beliefs, in this case the belief that an embryo has a soul as soon as a sperm fertilized the egg.
This issue parallels the vaccine despite debate. People younger than 40 have not lived in a world with measles, mumps or polio. They do not know what it was like to have your parents fear kids being in an iron lung, hospitalized for measles or getting German Measles/Rubella while pregnant and having a stillborn infant. People who came of age 60, 70 and 80 years ago remember it well.
The same is true for illegal abortion. Many families lost their sisters, aunts and mothers to illegal abortions. Many women lost their fertility after having illegal abortions. Ronald Reagan signed California’s law making abortion legal when he was governor because of the loss of life; women’s lives. Women who were once babies, and before that fetuses. When did those lives quit mattering?
Unfortunately, it seems the current generation are going to need to see the consequences of these laws and policies before they become politically engaged.
19
Our new models of governance are becoming Saudi Arabia and Russia. Family run politics, a few criminals stealing everything in sight, and draconian suppression for everyone else.
How is it possible the Democrats cannot get it together enough to stop this in a country where conservatives are in the minority and the Democrats actually won the last election for president?
21
If women and their advocates were in charge, the issue might be more properly balanced with an equally draconian emphasis on paternity management:
Compulsory vasectomy with exemption requiring a federally vetted confirmation of responsible, trustworthy character and an irrevocable escrow deposit for the care and education of offspring.
Such a proposal could provoke some interesting (and revealing) responses and, perhaps, a surprising lack of opposition from younger generations.
11
Post-Roe, if it ever comes (the sky is not falling, Ms. Goldberg), will not be worse than than pre-Roe because too many other tings have changed. We are now post The Pill, for one thing. The argument usually includes something about who controls women's bodies. Women do, and contraception provides the means. If men and women still conceive and refuse to accept the result and want to evade consequences, then we are now talking about people who lacked control over their bodies.
Except that NO method of contraception is foolproof. Unintended pregnancies will occur no matter what.
15
Except pretty much the same people also will go after contraception.
This commenter "gets it:"
"As rancorous as the post-Roe debates will be, we need them in all 50 states."
I oppose a reversal of Roe v. Wade because it's been around for a very long time (1973). But let's not overstate the effect of a reversal. The Supreme Court would be leaving it to to each state. Some states would decide that a woman's right to choose abortion is sacred. Other states (AL, for example) would decide that abortion is illegal.
Other Constitutional cases -- the "right to travel" cases -- would make clear that a pregnant woman may not be "officially" punished for traveling out of state to have an abortion, and that others may not be punished for helping her -- financially or otherwise. Money that is now donated to preserving Roe could instead be donated to "travel funds." (Frankly, I doubt it would be worth the effort to limit those funds to poor pregnant women, since this would require a huge administrative undertaking -- I think it would be cheaper simply to fund ALL pregnant women's out-of-state abortion-related travel; at least some "wealthy" pregnant women undoubtedly will be reluctant to apply.)
Some women who travel out of state for an abortion would be "unofficially" punished when they return -- by gossipy neighbors, for example. But I'm not sure that ANY law can prevent that from happening.
4
@Commenter the fact that an opinion has been around for a long time is, in some ways, a better reason to revisit and perhaps overturn it. Plessy was around for a long time before the Brown decision overturned it, after all.
The longer time a decision is in force, the more chance for it to be out of date.
What else do these 25 broad-shouldered Republican legislators have on their agenda for Alabama?Menstrual huts in public buildings?
17
I don’t see the word “Vasectomy” popping up in the comments.
13
@New World this is at least the 5th time I've seen the word in the last 10 minutes.
However, your point is well taken (I have my doubts that the ones that really need to understand / accept the point will take it though).
1
In modern day Alabama, A woman forced to have baby from incest and rape.
Himm, we can call modern day, but it seems 7-8 century. How in that case those countries which we saw in TV do abhorrent things to woman are worse than Alabama.
How can we as a nation be proud of Alabama existence in our union.
Yeah yeah we have state called Alabama it is true sore point
3
@su
Why should an innocent child have to pay with their lives for the crimes of their father. Punish the guilty.
What’s next? Taking the vote away from women? Banning women from driving? Hello Saudi Arabia.
13
I just don't get it. First, men making decisions about women's bodies and second, the total ignorance of men in general. t-Rump seems to have unleashed the worst of humanity in this country. We are on a downward spiral into the dark ages. Soon women will be waterboarded for being witches.
13
@heysus
Hi! I´m a woman who doesn't think she should get the decision to kill another individual
1
@Mcky - Yes, she should.
2
@Mcky
Good for you. Now stop trying to control everyone else.
Religious tyranny is on the rise and the consequences for America are a theocratic Supreme Court and a public policies that snuff out human rights.
9
@Rodger Parsons
We snuff out thousands of lives each day. I don´t think anyone is considering those humanś rights to live.
Maybe it is time to let these outlier Southern and midwestern states secede? Why not encourage them to do so at this point and then they can leave the rest of us alone. It is about power and control - not about the unborn fetus. Enough already.
9
What is more fundamental to personal liberty than the right of a human being to make decisions about his or her physical self?
Denying that right to any woman for any reason before a fetus is self-sustaining is an act of government tyranny. It is the imposition of church on state, of the patriarchy and its female servants on those who reject their arrogant, hate fueled hypocrisy.
These sanctimonious agents of fake Christianity, forcing their medieval cruelty on women, are not pro-life. The anti-abortion cult rejects government support for children once born, facilitates deadly gun culture, and supports the death penalty.
How are anti-life laws like those being passed in the Confederacy not a denial of equal protection to the female gender? They deny women the fundamental right, the core of personal liberty, to control their own bodies.
Thankfully I live in California. Secession of the “blue” states from a nation increasingly held hostage by a rabid minority sounds better every day. Please just let us go. We’ll do fine, you can live in your miserable patriarchal oligarchies.
15
@Julie B nice reference to the CSA.
1
Those states that “save” the unborn from abortion, but do not provide for their prenatal care and subsequent universal daycare should be sued en masse and asked to explain this abrogation of their government’s duty to the Supreme Court.
12
Please join me in refusing to travel to Alabama, Georgia, Missouri and Ohio and boycotting any product made in those states and any company headquartered there.
15
Gilead here we come.
6
As I read of these regressive states attempting to let religious extremists dictate a woman's rights, I see the angry, nasty scowl of Brett Kavannaugh.
24
Draw a line from Kansas to Kentucky to South Carolina. Take every state down to Texas and over to Florida and give them their own little Hellish Conservative Theocracy.
The rest of the USA could come to terms with and join Canada to create a country that can begin to be a light in the world again.
14
well prenatal care goes out the window....You don't want the government to know so you don't go.....Suddenly the party of small government is gonna grow some is some very repressive ways....
10
White religious America fears becoming a minority. Banning birth control, the day after pill and abortion will only accelerate the eventuality of minority status. Which demographic has a higher birth rate right now? This is all hilarious theatre of the absurd.
5
How did we get to the most unrepresentative government in history? Same way you become a billionaire? You lie! You cheat! You steal! Look at how we got to a "wrongteous" majority in SCOTUS!
The holier than thou crowd is ganging up on pregnant women - worldwide. After they defeat Roe, they'll then attack other secular institutions and fight religions they hate. We'll just be like all those tyrannical theocracies in the Middle East.
Doctors won't save a woman's life if an abortion is needed to do so, fearing death in prison by second guessing GOP death panels. Women who miscarry will be subjected to brutal punishment under evangelical shariah law - indeed, they'll be first in line to cast the first stone.
Locking up women and doctors for life is needed to fill all those for emptying for-profit-prisons losing inmates faster under new more lenient laws for actual murder of live conscious and aware humans.
Alabama's law is nothing less than state and religious (evangelical) sponsored long term continuous physical rape of pregnant women, even after the act which could also have been as a result of rape or incest. Adding to the offense, what are the genetic impacts on the offspring?
Making it worse is trump's wall to prevent women refugees seeking healthcare from getting into Mexico.
Then you have cruel arguments put out by Republican hacks imposing their "wrongteous" indignation - like "the moment to decide is before the act." As if rape and incest victims have that choice!!!
9
Lest it be overlooked abortion is not the right in question, it is the right to privacy under the 14th amendment. It is the limitation of state power to break into your life and overrule it. The state's side is not even about pregnancy it's about where state power to interfere stops. The topic is: "Does the state have unlimited call on citizen's in every aspect of their life, or not?" Argue that. Even the right wingers understand the state must be limited, they are just hiding, for convenience, in a shell of religious moral peculiarity and successfully not being pushed to confront the real issue. As Thomas Pynchon noted, "If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry too much about coming up with answers."
People, all people, have privacy that the state may not offend. Within that exists medical procedures to remove cells. The end, that's how Roe is adjudicated. Hire a pundit who can make the case. I'll do it if you can't find a working professional on your staff.
16
@CK All medical regulation is the state breaking into your life and overruling it. Do you oppose insisting that Doctors have an MD? Are you against laws prohibiting female genital mutilation? Should hospitals not be required to be licensed?
Where does the line get drawn is the question that is really being asked here, and what powers should the States delegate to the Federal government.
@mikecody - Huh? An anti-abortion law is not "medical regulation" it's an invasion of privacy and application of state power over a woman's control of her self. Women don't require a license to be a citizen, as much as you might like that. The "line" is drawn, in the question of the state's right to intercede in a woman terminating a pregnancy, at "viability." You sound like you've never even read the case law about which you are attempting to get your way.
1
"...last month Texas legislators held a hearing on a bill that would allow women who have abortions to be charged with homicide and potentially subject to the death penalty.""
That's some pretty rich hypocrisy, there.
9
Most of the time, the same politicians who support these draconian measures, also support the death penalty.
3
One person's religion is another's witchcraft. This is why democratic government must disregard all beliefs held solely on the basis of faith when negotiating public policy.
10
I was in college in South Texas before Roe v. Wade. Several girls (more than two) that I knew went to Mexico to have an abortion. They went to back alley clinics with dirty instruments and no real care. They had to walk back across the bridge to Texas and hemorraged so badly they died! Whether the new laws create the death penalty or not, the conservative lawmakers have sentenced women to die.
10
#MandatoryVasectomies, the problem of unwanted pregnancy will be solved. Rape by relative or stranger will continue because, well, men do that kind of thing. Also, sex education should start at 9 years of age, birth control for girls at 15, mandatory condoms for boys at the same sage. Rapists immediately put to death.
5
If a male is immediately put to death and afterwards it is shown the accuser was mistaken or lied, what is your plan to compensate the male and punish the woman?
We need to defend our First Amendment right to Freedom of Religion via class action lawsuits in every state that restricts access to reproductive healthcare, including contraception and abortions. These restrictions are based on evangelical Christian talking points that are 50 years in the making. Talk to the ACLU in your state.
4
In the middle ages, a fetus was not considered a person until the mother experienced a "leap" in the womb. That meant the soul had entered the body.
Today's "pro life" extremists consider even a collection of chromosomes, a blastopore, a zygote to be a human being. Anything that occurs after ejaculation -- a male privilege -- allows the female vessel to be taken captive.
If abortion is "murder", then if follows absolutely that the complicit woman bears as much guilt as the abortionist and should be imprisoned. And whatever tissue has been removed from her womb should be baptized and given a proper Christian burial.
But such "foolish consistency" would be the hobgoblin of political support. Politicians want to control women's bodies, but only up to a point -- the point where men see the women they impregnated locked behind bars.
5
I'm Catholic and believe there are cases of justifiable abortion: specifically, incest, rape, and lethal birth defects. Also, I believe birth control is a better solution than abortion.
Note that not one female Alabama State senator voted for their new law.
3
The similarity to nationalistic, patriarchal policies of the Alabama and others states' rulings on abortion and the definition and rights of the fetus put women under the thumb of whichever government chooses to nullify them as individuals w/their own choices, in addition to bearing children. Somehow in the south where slaves where not considered one human, but less or 3/5ths, this enslavement of women and their bodies rebounds to that awful time. The Alabam Legislature seems to be made almost wholly of white men, and perhaps three women of color? Abomination all this.
1
@Katalina
And the life of the baby is considered somehow less valuable than that of the mother. The child is not 3/5ths a human being.Their size a location can not nullify this.
This is the Republican Party telling women that their wombs belong to the party.
This includes married couples who may not want to have any more children for any number of reasons: the decision is not theirs but that of the Republican Party.
Incest, rape: the Republican Party says you are a victim but nevertheless without the same rights as the Republican Party. Frankly the law - innocent till proven guilty, the right to an attorney - grants more rights to the assailants and rapists.
There is not choice: Republican Party is in your life .
8
@JL
We all MUST vote in every election and vote out Republicans at every level.
These so-called representatives are not "fighting" for you, they are actively & aggressively fighting AGAINST citizens and completely ignoring citizens once they get into office.
Vote them all out. And fast.
1
Michelle reports "Texas legislators held a hearing on a bill that would allow women who have abortions to be charged with homicide and potentially subject to the death penalty." The hypocrisy of the so called right to lifers is unbelievable.
4
For those who deny that the unborn "fetus" is not a person. look at the facts: All of the traits that make up a person are already present at the time of conception. Hair color, eye color, gender, aptitude and personality. What more do you want?
A brain! That’s what I want. There’s no working brain! Isn’t that why we pull the plug on the brain dead? “I think therefore I am.” With no ability to think and feel in the first trimester, there is no “I am”.
4
Anyone who claims, "It's not really about protecting life but [fill-in-the-blank]" is either willfully obtuse or truly ignorant of the underlying principles of the pro-life movement.
No one is going to respect this viewpoint. I can assure you it just sounds like angry denial. If you want to be taken seriously, I suggest you start taking the pro-life position seriously
1
“No one is going to respect this viewpoint.”
Really?
I’d say many - if not most - thoughtful, informed people will agree with the viewpoint that the real goal of anti-abortion people is to force their religious beliefs down the throats of everyone else.
If this commenter is not motivated by that desire, then he is anomalous.
1
Actually, I take these far-right attempts to shove religious beliefs up everybody’s throats with complete seriousness. I also take the “pro-life,” movement’s propensity for lying, hatred, firebimbing and murder quite seriously.
1
@AACNY
Those on the side of women and the ability to make our own medical decisions will "start taking the pro-life position" seriously once the wing nuts start acknowledging scientific & biological facts and stop being complicit in ignorant legislators and others practicing medicine without either a license or an education,
I wonder how many abortions these Republican legislators have carried out as byproduct of their personal infidelity -- I would love to see those numbers.
10
Having a hard time trying to understand the mindset that the prolifers espouse? Take a drive through the South and turn on the radio.....
3
@Crewsin
Do unto others and you would have others do unto you.
1
Before they make carrying a fetus mandatory...before they start imprisoning doctors for performing abortions...before they threaten women with jail (or execution?!) for aborting a pregnancy...
It’s time to start boycotting states that pass these laws. Don’t attend conventions in their cities. Don’t go to see their sports teams play when they come to town – picket the games. Stop buying Georgia peaches, Honda and Hyundai cars made in Alabama.
Let’s brand everything from, by or about these states: “Made in Gilead.”
8
In 1963, I was a nurses aide, on the maternity floor of a Catholic hospital. Hemorrhaging women were dumped at the entrance to our emergency room, women who had tried to abort themselves, women who had been thrown down the stairs by their partners in hopes of inducing a miscarriage, women who had been maimed by amateur abortionists. Infants were born on our floor with fatal birth defects, to spend minutes, or hours, or perhaps a week, suffering, before they died (but they died baptized). Only those too young to remember what it was like could wish this on us again.
16
My sister Cordelia would be turning eleven this summer if she hadn't died at six months gestation. When she died, still inside my mother's womb, it didn't go right. Somehow, large parts of her body stayed in there. That causes infections that can kill.
The people who were able to help here were not the pro-life activists. The people who could help, who could remove my baby sister's corpse and save my mother's life, were the workers at the local abortion clinic. They were kind, professional, and polite. All the pro-life activists did was scream that she was a murderer as she was walking in.
I am curious, I admit. When abortion is gone, what is the plan for handling pregnancy disasters such as my mother's? Is there one? Or does it become God's will for young mothers to die of septic shock?
25
@Amanda
As good as the help for your mother was, the majority of the work of those same clinics is not. The workers who aided her also leave babies who survive abortions to die on counter tops, or piece together the broken bits of there tiny limbs after being crushed and vacuumed up. If any part of the baby is left it will result in the death of the mother, because the rotting flesh will result in septic. But how can something rot if it never died? And how can something that died have not been alive? And isn´t the taking of life....is that not still considered murder? Without abortion, maybe those cases like your mother can be taken to hospitals-just a thought
So are abortions legal up to 6 weeks? Seems taking care early on is a healthy choice.
1
The anti-abortion "Right to Life" thugs only care about the fetus until the moment it is born, then they support laws the would prevent those children from getting adequate health care, adequate nutrition, adequate housing, adequate schooling and adequate jobs. They are also against women getting effective birth control. I've been calling them the "Get them born so we can kill them" crowd.
3
I really wonder.
If an adult today was adopted as a baby, as a result of his/her biological mother ‘s inability to have a wanted abortion, I wonder how they feel about the abortion controversy.
1
According to a 2017 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average cost of raising a child from birth through age 17 is $233,610. I would love to see a survey of anti-abortionists about how much of their own financial resources they’d be willing to donate to make sure these unwanted children have a basic humane existence. The hard right is anti-tax and anti-social program. So, are they willing to personally donate money and other resources? Or is this just massive hypocrisy cloaked in fundamentalist zeal....pro-birth in reality, pro-life if you can somehow afford and provide one. Not every poor woman or family is going to give up their child for adoption, and thats not even a guarantee the child will be humanely raised. My wife’s cousin is the product of miserable adoptive parents. As I say, nobody “likes” abortion. It’s a very difficult thing, but anti-abortionists would be much better served to work at correcting the conditions that lead to unwanted pregnancies...better education, better healthcare, better economic conditions and opportunities. Alabama is saying, “instead of treating the wound, lets amputate.”
3
Hey, there's a pile-o-dough to be made here, a new business proposition for GOP politicians and their cronies:
1) Have ALEC write a law to garnish the wages of fathers for 18 years.
2) Build a nationwide network of privately owned debtor's prisons for deadbeat fathers.
7
More and more it's looking like a divorce is the only solution to what is splitting this nation too. Let the conservatives' half of the US mandate compulsory pregnancy and open-carry of hand grenades if that's what they demand. They can even call it the Confederate States of America.
Meanwhile, let my more reasonable, liberal half of the US will have free choice on abortion, health care for all, gun control, proper funding of public education, etc. Gay marriage and adoption and transgender will be totally recognized in this liberal half. Another thing, we'll take about 70% of the economy too.
10
Will in vitro fertilization also be made illegal? All of the fertilized eggs cannot possibly be implanted.
7
@susan No, someone actually commented on this in the debate (Clyde Chambliss, look it up) and said those didn't matter because they were not inside a pregnant woman. Yes, he actually said that.
1
@Susi Says all there is to say about motivation, doesn't it.
1
Some girls can ovulate as young as 8 or 9 years old. To legally force a girl that age (and any other female of any age) ) to carry to full term isn't pro life.
It's sick and twisted.
11
A very Republican doctrine. Doesn't affect the 1 percenters who have the resources to find safe abortion providers wherever they may be. The poor will bear children they cannot afford to care for or that may be congenitally impaired thus widening the already huge economic gap.
5
Demonize Iran all you want. With laws like this, how are we not their mirror image?
12
Our for-profit prisons need warm bodies.
1
The future you wrote of is aligned with the Gilead depicted in the Hand Maiden’s Tale.
The backward thinking Bible Belt is at it again. The problem is that these people represent a minority population that is living in the past and have not evolved. They still are able to send two Senators per state to Congress which is the real problem for the rest of us. I think of States like Alabama the same way as lost tribes in the jungle, hope they survive, but I’m avoiding them at all cost.
5
The GOP is working hard to get abortion in front of the SCOTUS. Time for Brett Kavanaugh to pay back the individuals who bought him a mansion, payed off a mortgage, and picked up the bill on his gambling debt.
6
We don't want to risk having Roe overturned. What to do? Nothing. Don't challenge the anti-women's lives laws in Alabama and Georgia. Let the citizens of those antediluvian states live with those laws and suffer the consequences and limit the laws to those states. What an unexpected surprise for those fools. The legislators admit their only purpose was to challenge Roe. Please, ACLU and Planned Parenthood; give them a GOTCHA! by turning your back on them, and maybe also Louisiana and Mississippi. I mean, theses states haven't gotten over having lost slavery. Let them wallow in the mud of their filthy and warped minds and morality. You'll see them amend those laws when their constituents turn on them.
5
So much for a free country with separation of church and state.
4
@Crewsin: without taking up a lot of space and time, I’ll just recommend you look into Jefferson’s definition of the separation of church and state.
What is it about right-wing extremist America that, across the board, obsesses with turning back time?
Every urge—every legal, religious, cultural drive—is pursuing some fantasy of America that’s based in an era of white male supremacy, women without rights, prejudice, guns, states rights and border wars. Really, it unites all America’s anti-government, GOP, NRA, white supremacy movements; individual crackpots, terrorists. And the worst aspects of our Southern states. They all ought to dress in garb from the 1800s.
5
There is a deep hatred of women inherent in these abortion laws, which is not surprising given who the Republicans chose to be their president.
7
What many may not know is that this abortion ban is supported by many women. We do not approve or agree to the killing of unborn babies. And the number of women who are against abortion is only growing.
1
Many, if not most, women who support conservative politics view themselves as little more than chattel whose role is to be controlled by men, as a trade-off for protection. They're too afraid to stand up for themselves so they submit to being second-class citizens.
7
@KMW a first trimester fetus is not a baby. It is a ball of cells or a little tadpole thing with a tail. Please don't be silly when trying to dictate what others should do with their bodies. You have no right.
10
@KMW
Oh, dear. Another comment that ignores facts. The fact is that the number of women who actively & totally support the rights of ALL women to make their own life and medical decisions is "only growing".
No wonder the rigid religionists are so lacking in education.
3
Women of America, vote out of office anyone who legislates against the rights of women. You don't need permission from a husband, church or family members to do what is right for you. Misogyny infects this country. Allowing others to control your body is tantamount to slavery.
5
@DD
This. We all need to aggressively act at the polls to vote out all Republicans. They do NOT represent us and actively fight AGAINST what the vast majority of us expect them to do once they are in office.
Plus, Republicans are clearly working against us with their constant attempts to restrict voting to only other Republicans.
Think about that as the next election approaches.
Tell the Governor of Alabama and the Republican ladies to stop supporting Republican male policies which don’t support uneducated women with children. That minimum wage you have all been supporting for years won’t pay for daycare, diapers, and formula.
1
I think the right to decisions over one's own body should be a deeply conservative, small government, point of view. But religion gets in the way of what should be a "Free person, rights of the individual" perspective. It's because they think lumps of cells/tadpole-like entities are people. They are not. End of story. A brain is needed for person hood. Remove religion from the equation and there would be very few anti-abortionists. The right to life people are agents of religious oppression. Kind of like Sharia law, which is legitimately scary. This is Christian Sharia. Keep your superstitions out of my life. I am a free person, a free American, and I will chose what is right for me.
6
Not sure why the left has such a hatred for Pro-Life, but it seems they know the truth that medical science is the enemy and that No-Choice for the unborn is on the wrong side of the natural laws of free citizens protected by constitution and Bill of Rights.
Is egg-ownership the right to decide what becomes of the fetus, capriciously or otherwise, from heart-beat to breathing air?
Answering this question, the left has discovered, is not so easy to do anymore, even with our Sovietized mass-media spun up and spinning out propaganda like cotton-candy to the contrary.
1
Maybe a whole lot of women will refuse to engage in sex as long as these laws are in place. I bet it wouldn't be long before men re-thunk it.
3
This is so awful in so many ways. What I happen to be thinking about right now is how all this right-wing morality legislating has diminished my respect for the law in general. It is easy to break the law with a clean conscience when laws like this are enacted. This kind of legislation is guerilla warfare against me, so I just take it upon myself to counter their tactics with tactics of my own. Even our president has no respect for the rule of law, so why should anyone else?
But one must always to conduct oneself ethically even while violating the letter of an unjust law. As Bob Dylan has taught us, "to live outside the law you must be honest."
3
@Boneisha
One action I have thought about: All of the ob-gyns should just go ahead in every state and provide women with medically & scientifically sound treatment of whatever type they & their patients decide to do & let these ignorant legislators go twist in the wind. They can't arrest & prosecute all of them.
Another masterful column, Michelle. The difference between then and now, is that the ant-abortion lobby has largely won the propaganda war and abortion is now equated with murder, even in the minds of the non-religious. I know personally of a number of young women, unmarried and without a steady income, who have had children and who might have opted for an early termination of the pregnancy in the late 70s or 80s. Without the religious aspect, there would be no stigma attached to early abortions. This the same mindset that leads all the way back to making birth control illegal. And many of these activists won't be satisfied until they roll back women's rights that far.
2
I married a man who had a congenital disease and then developed a terminal one. I never had an abortion, but had I become pregnant, I'd have wanted to choose between my own illnesses, my husband's, and terminating a pregnancy. Ms. Goldberg's thoughtful column makes me very sad because it's in the very states that are passing these laws that women already have few choices, whereas we here in the Northeast do, and, I trust, will continue to have them. In fact, we had them even before Roe v. Wade. I'm not sure what the solution is, for I thought we'd had one, for, let's face it, no woman wants to abort a child but each of us wants to know that options are available because we don't all have the means to raise sick children or the families to help us do so. The solution is, of course, birth control which I practiced religiously, but youngsters don't always have the opportunity to do so -- and incest or rape? What is wrong with this Alabaman governor? Do she and her male compatriots live in the Dark Ages?
3
Because of this spate of anti-woman legislation, I decided to go back and read Roe v. Wade recently. It's kind of an amazing piece of work. In Section V of his opinion, Justice Blackmun went into a detailed medical and legal history of abortion dating back to Hippocrates. He also explored the legal history of "personhood" as it applies to the U.S. Constitution. I recommend it to anyone participating in this debate.
Blackmun points out (as Michelle does in this piece) that historically, abortion was pretty freely available. But abortion laws become more stringent in the period from the mid-nineteenth to the mid twentieth centuries. Some of those restrictions arose due to Victorian sensibilities. Others, were more practical: abortion was an unsafe procedure with a high mortality rate for women. The development of antiseptics changed the latter. But even insofar as some thought abortion was immoral, the restrictions were not so tight that they couldn't be overcome for medical necessity.
Times change. We are living in a dramatically more conservative legal environment where conservatism, once based on an absence of government interference in one's life, has morphed into a belief that government can interfere with our most private matters.
Roe was well reasoned and solidly decided. It should remain the law of the land.
15
What needs to be stated and restated until everyone understands it is that the abortion bans being passed in all these red states will only impact women who don't have the financial means to get themselves to places like New York, where they can obtain legal abortions. Women of means will always be able to access abortion no matter what state they reside. Poor women will once again pay with their lives by turning to coat hangars, throwing themselves down flights of stairs or back-alley unsanitary illegal abortions. I just don't understand how the state legislators who vote for these bills can't or won't see that. They could reduce the need for abortions by funding sex education, subsidizing birth control, passing increased minimum wage laws, subsidized child care for working mothers. Those would be true pro-life actions.
8
@Dianne Walsh - it would be interesting to see what happens if they then tried extending their laws to go after women who have the means to travel out of state for abortions.
Of course, that would be going after people with the means to fight back, so, less likely.
More discussion of the topic, and the hypocrisy of the current round of legislation where many of the states are pretending they won't go after women for what they want to call murder.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/eric-zorn/ct-perspec-zorn-abortion-alabama-punishment-moral-roe-v-wade-20190516-story.html
I think Roe America (as opposed to pre-Roe or Post-Roe) is hardly monolithic. Where a woman lives remains the single most significant factor in determining her freedom to choose. And always, wealth is the second most important factor.
What we see is all interconnected, and it will not last, because we are and will remain a functioning democracy, but I believe it's important to understand why this is happening.
1) A minority of Americans, often geographically located or now connected by the Internet, and so made to feel like they are a far-from-silent majority, have wished to reshape society in their image.
2) Being a minority, they have watched the nation go in the opposite direction through democratic means.
3) As a solution, they have sought to undermine democracy in many ways, first through winning state houses, which in turn allowed voter suppression and gerrymandering, which in turn elected an authoritarian president, who in turn, in concert with a cooperative Senate, are now appointing their version of "activist judges."
The point is, these people are purposely undermining democracy because it's the only way to force their will on the majority. They don't see it that way, but it's the truth.
5
Where was this affinity for babies when miscarriages were happening left and right in Flint, Michigan? It makes any presumption of a Pro-Life stance to be fundamentally suspicious.
7
The conservative, evangelical right may be celebrating the victory of male dominated legislatures over women’s personal rights but they should realize that others in this country feel their actions are immoral, malevolent and beyond redemption.
6
It's cruel and offensive, not to mention against civil and human rights, to dictate to women their reproductive decisions. No one is "pro" abortion, but it's a sometimes better choice to the alternative. No one has a right to deny a female her choice.
6
I am sorry Jill, but many of us are pro abortion. Abortion is normal, it is health care. No it’s not always an easy decision. The problem is the stigma that surrounds it creates shame so no one will talk about it or they will talk about it in the third person. Many of us, men and women, feel it’s time to normalize abortion. I am proudly pro abortion and I am thankful everyday I had access to safe and inexpensive abortion care in my home country. The longer we surround this issue with shame and taboo the greater the power of the true anti abortionists.
3
We are living through dark times. Thank you, Michelle, for this and all your other columns. I would like to add, though, and I am sure you would agree, that Trump just makes all this possible. Yes, Trump is an amoral nihilist, but he is not the root of the problem: Republicans empower this man and his gang in the WH. They keep him in power because he delivers exactly what they want. Removing Trump from office is not sufficient if we cannot at the same time get rid of the likes of McConnell and those amoral cynical worshippers of power, money and authoritarian leaders as described by Ayn Rand. This is what most Republicans are interested in. Abortion has always been a wedge issue to feed the religious right. No less, no more.
5
Evangelical Christians held their noses and voted for someone who is the antithesis of everything they claimed to represent. They were rewarded for that with 2 Supreme Court justices who will vote to overturn Roe. Democrats need to drop the purity test and learn to get in line with whomever gets the nomination. Throwing a fit because your candidate didn't get the nomination and either not voting or wasting it on a terrible candidate like Jill Stein is why we are in a panic about Roe vs. Wade. Democrats need to step away from the circular firing squad. If we don't and Trump is re-elected he will get to appoint at least 1 more person to the Supreme Court.
7
@Quitman if "winning" is your goal, then you're right. What do we become when winning is more important than values though? My guess is we become something like the worst the Republican party has to offer today...
1
Goldberg mentions the new abortion restrictions in some states, but she fails to mention laws in other states that allow doctors to kill a baby *after* it is born. Post-Roe positions are likely to be more extreme on both sides.
But the central fact remains: Roe was wrongly decided; it stands on such constitutional fictions as "emanations from penumbras" of rights. Abortion policy is much too morally complex and divisive to be decided by fiat on a national level. As rancorous as the post-Roe debates will be, we need them in all 50 states.
3
@Sabrina What is this bizarre talking point I keep seeing from the right? No one is killing babies as "abortion." That's infanticide, and it's illegal.
Some disingenuous folks are trying to conflate hospice care for terminally ill and dying infants with abortion. It's not true and it's a disgusting attempt to confuse the issue.
3
@Sabrina
I'd like to see an example of one of those laws, please.
1
Remember when Hillary chose an anti-abortion "centrist" instead of a Progressive? See where going for "electable" candidates gets us?
Let's wrest the narrative back from the terrorists masquerading as conservatives:
1. They are not "conservative." They are extremists who seek to imprison the rest of us with their so-called "Christian" sharia law. Make no mistake -- this is sharia.
2. Throw out the term "pro-life" and call them what they are: forced birthers. If they were truly pro-life, they would provide contraception, sex education, social safety net and all the other accoutrements of life after being born.
3. Do not call people like myself pro-abortion. Abortion is a difficult decision and I'm pro-choice and pro-privacy because I believe that a woman has the right to agency over her own body.
These draconian laws treat women as if they were chattel. What's next to go -- our right to vote, own property, travel without a male relative escorting us?
2
Then let the majority of women and men who are pro choice and anti-theocracy rise up and throw these extremists out of power.
1
Your words give voice to my thoughts. Thank you. We all thought Trump was trying to take us back in time, and it turns out he's trying to take us into a future that is so hideous, we do not want to go
Most women that get abortions are the least likely amongst us to properly care and support a child.
There is a direct correlation between the availability of abortion and a lower rate of crime; yet the far right want’s to even restrict a woman’s access to birth control. Where is the logic in that.
2
Consider this for a national discussion, at least by women who make up 51% of the vote: ..... where abortion is banned, vasectomies could be legally required for the man involved the unwanted pregnancy.
2
Once again stupidity reigns. Like it or not, there are already too many people on the planet, people are the major drivers of climate change. Forcing women to reproduce might well force mankind out of existence. Nothing in the Green New Deal will stop climate change--only prolong the impending crisis. The real solution is to stop having children. Period. I realize I'll get lots of hate responses to this--truthtellers always do, but the reality is what it is. Current climate change will soon lead to food shortages. It's already caused disruption of habitable land areas. The new tent cities are made up of those whose dwellings have been repeatedly destroyed by fire/flood/storms on both coasts. It's about time the U.S. woke up to the crisis at hand instead of worrying about supporting myths and legends handed down throughout generations about the existence of a God. Once upon a time, Mother Earth had diseases that periodically purged the population, but mankind in its arrogance "cures" or "fights" those diseases, creating inoculations against the most virulent, including the flu, and even conquering AIDS. At the rate we're going, humanity will die in the folly of its own vanity.
The pro-lifers seem to want to go back to medieval times, NOT good. The states that are doing this also are the ones with the worst school education results. They don't really care about kids at all.
1
How Ms Goldberg feels about guns is how some people feel about abortion. Extreme solutions are not viable.
As a man, I feel totally inadequate to comment on the issue of abortion. I am however absolutely amazed at the docility of the citizenry at large to simply acquiesce to the gall of legislatures depriving women of the liberty to control their reproductive rights. The same applies to the Supreme Court. Who are these bozos who think that they have such rights? Where are we going back to? The fifties or the fifteen hundreds? What’ s next? Burn women at the stake? Hang and disembowel doctors who perform abortions?
When the ballot box is being rigged by those same actors to keep them safely in control whatever they do, we are way past the time to “vote them out”. Time to band together and fight said one commenter. I wholeheartedly agree. There are plenty of men with daughters and granddaughters to fight with them. But not with votes, with pitch forks.
1
As usual, there is no penalty for the men who cause the unplanned pregnancies... When men are prosecuted for unprotected sex, I'll believe the anti-abortion movement is about "protecting life."
5
How will the state identify pregnant women at 6 weeks? Will they pry into medical records?
3
Whatever happened to the separation of church and state? What gives one person or group, under the flimsy guise of religion, the legal right to force their beliefs on another person? The religious businesses around our country are perfectly happy to not pay taxes, but it’s quite alright for them to tell, nay, order other humans as to what they may or may not choose do. To the religious I say- stay out of my life and the lives of women who, like me, have a right to live our lives as we want to. You have no god given right to impose impose your life on us. Understand this, you are not us, you are not living our life. If you can’t think for yourself, that’s your problem and yours alone. Leave us to live ours under our constitution.
3
I think the key to mobilizing marginally pro-choice forces is to emphasize how far this goes beyond abortion. Whether or not you agree with abortion or would ever have one yourself, what about getting thrown in jail because of taking a Valium or having a drink? Will your neighbor rat you out at the block party when they see you take a sip of your spouse's beer while pregnant? You don't have to be a "baby killer" to see the wrath of all the implications this brings forth - just a "negligent mother to be" is more than enough.
QUESTION: Is a tadpole a baby frog ? This question settles the whole matter because the answer is NO.
2
A question: What would the highest individual and corporate tax rate be if American voters were undivided by abortion and guns. The answer may reveal why deep pocket entities contribute to the GOP.
I've been an obstetrician for 39 years and I have questions.
If my patient comes in bleeding in her 10th week of pregnancy do I have to report her to the police? If I fail to report her miscarriage, is that a crime?
If her membranes are ruptured and she has a uterine infection but her baby still has a heartbeat, can I deliver her before term? Is that a crime?
If my patient has a baby with birth defects, can I perform an amniocentesis? There is a slight risk of miscarriage. If that happens is that a crime?
If my patient has a baby with no kidneys or no brain and I induce labor early, is that a crime?
And if my patient with cancer or heart disease in pregnancy or any number of conditions where pregnancy may cause her death or shorten her lifespan, do I explain to her that abortion could save her life? Is that a crime?
I do hope that the good politicians of Alabama and Georgia with all their medical wisdom are ready to provide me with guidance on these and so many more questions.
14
@LMW
Lordy Lordy
Them there are some mighty big questions Doc.
Mostly the answers depend on whether The doctor and the patient are black or white.
If both are black, both are gonna get locked up.
Ain’t that how it works in Alabama ?
1
@New World
I figure this is the way that conservatives can lock up black women in equal numbers with black men.
I was thinking I would retire soon but it looks like I need to move to Alabama or Georgia. They're going to need more doctors down there since they're planning to incarcerate the ones currently in practice at a fast clip.
1
Having a child is probably the most important decision of our lives. A child, who should have the best possible chance of being nurtured into a good human being, a good citizen. It needs love, care and support of a loving family, good education and nourishment of soul to be happy enough to someday give it back to the society.
My heart goes out to all the children who will be born deserving the best possible chance at life but will enter on this planet unwanted and with lack of resources (unmarried / underaged
under-educated /poor women and lack of government help), to be able to grow as good citizens and good contributors to the society.
Where is the punishment for the men who impregnate the women listed?
3
Anyone who thinks this oppression will stop with the outlawing of abortion hasn't been paying attention. The immediate goal of the religious extremists is stopping all abortions, but their ultimate endgame is a move toward establishing biblical law, or more precisely, their interpretation of biblical law, as the law of the land. Banning abortion is a vehicle that will get them in the government door to do just that.
There's a movement growing in red states to get enough Republican support to convene a constitutional convention. With the blatant disregard by religious extremists for the principle of separation of church and state, the constant invoking of their god's name to justify their twisted demands and the virtually unlimited financial support churches can give to politicians of their choice, it's pretty obvious to me that their diabolical endgame is a real possibility.
Check your state's Republican legislators to see where they stand on a constitutional convention. You'll be shocked. There are dozens, if not more, in favor. With a constitutional convention and enough votes, gained through gerrymandering and voter suppression, the radical evangelicals can alter or eliminate the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and establish a theocracy. The sky's the limit. This is a very real possibility. Check your legislator's stance on this. Our democracy depends on it.
8
For those that are anti-abortion should offer an alternative such as allocating a whole lot more resources to care for children and youth.
3
@Richard Right on! If only the passion around ‘personhood’ of the fetus would extend to the personhood of the infant, toddler or child in America who is being systematically deprived of shelter, adequate nourishment and civic protection.
The hypocrisy of the "pro lifers" in every way from medical cut backs, eliminating more food stamps, slashing education funding, for the death penalty is mind boggling. It is no one else's business what a woman decides for her physical and mental health. We are not second class large children that needs government intervention, but respect and rights given all men.
9
I went to college in the early 70’s in Texas. My parents flew with my older sister to California when she had an unwanted pregnancy - back in the day we went to a private university that didn’t allow birth control. I later worked in pharmaceutical sales and called on physicians who had provided abortions pre-Roe vs Wade because they felt morally they had to provide abortions as they had witnessed the consequences of botched abortions too often. Unwanted pregnancies will always happen and women will always seek them. To exclude abortions for rape and incest is especially appalling to me. The statements from some of these legislators about abortion makes me sick!
10
What would happen if a demographic shift occurs where pro-life people move to states like Alabama, and pro-choice people move to states like Massachusetts? Ok it would harden the culture war's boundary line, but maybe states could be better neighbors with better fences. Not that I think this is the preferable solution. I believe that abortion should be a right and and a choice determined not by the government but by the women and her health practitioners. But we are clearly not there yet.
3
It seems odd that there is no mention of the man involved in the woman's pregnancy - he appears to be held harmless. It is only the woman who wishes to abort and her doctor who will be judged guilty and imprisoned for terminating the pregnancy. We all know it takes two to tango. But, we don't know what circumstances are in play. The woman maybe an unwilling partner and later find herself pregnant and be faced with criminal charges if she decides to abort. This new stance on a woman's reproductive rights would be devastating in many instances. It is also important to note that the law would focus only on the woman and the provider. It seems the man involved is totally innocent of any crime.
9
This was a glaring omission that I have noticed as well. In some cases, such as very abusive relationships, if the woman gets pregnant the man may then attempt to force or coerce the woman into getting an abortion she doesn't actually want to have. These laws do not tackle that issue, helping further make the case that alot of these "pro-lifers" are actually just anti-women.
These fetal heartbeat laws, as well as Alabama's complete illegalization of abortion, are unconstitutional and should not exist at all (hopefully the Supreme Court sees it this way as well when inevitably one of these laws make it there). They shouldn't exist in any form, but if they're going to punish a woman for getting an abortion they need to at least consider that sometimes it is not the woman's choice at all. In effect they would be punishing a woman for being in an abusive and controlling relationship, which is despicable.
In arguing against these efforts to make abortion illegal, the most common response is what this article discusses, a return to the world where illegal "back-alley" abortions occurred. These were frequently done in unsanitary conditions, by doctors of questionable skill. Excessive bleeding and infection were often the results that brought women to emergency rooms and sometimes caused their death. While this would be less likely in today's world because a bus ride to another city could allow a woman to have an abortion legally, what's ignored is the number of women who die every year in childbirth. Even this article mentions a statistic of 200 deaths from illegal abortions in 1965, which was only 17% of the overall deaths for women from pregnancy and childbirth for that year. To force a woman to carry a baby to term says you are forcing her to risk death, which can also mean leaving her already born children without a mother. If the so-called pro-life people who want to declare personhood to a group of dividing cells in a woman's body are sincere in their efforts to protect human life, they should consider working to keep women and babies safe in childbirth and after. America has some of the highest numbers of maternal and infant mortality in the industrialized world. Perhaps efforts to reduce these deaths would be a better use of our time.
9
Actually, no. Under the new Georgia law a Georgia resident getting an abortion ANYWHERE is subject to felony charges as well as anyone aiding and abetting her arrangements to do so so such as travel. it is absurd. Leave the country and get an abortion where it is legal, and the State of Georgia will hunt you down and try you for commiting the felony of having an abortion.
4
My own thought is that the current legal framework under the Roe and Casy decisions is the most reasoned, best possible accommodation on such a divisive issue -- falling between totally unrestricted abortions and an outright ban on all (or nearly all) abortions. I know many people who are "pro-choice," for lack of a better description.. I do not know anyone who is "pro-abortion."
7
Over half of the Millennials and generation Yers didn't vote in the 2016 election. They have no one but themselves to blame when they lose their reproductive choices. The differences in the party platforms were clear.
Not only will the post Roe abortion bans be worse than the ones before Roe, but the birth control cases that preceded Roe are also in danger if Roe is overturned. They're all based on the same privacy arguments.
Justice Kavanaugh indicated in his confirmation hearing that he believes contraception is abortion. If enough Justices hold that belief, then States will be able to criminalize access to birth control again.
And no, you won't be able to get your abortificants or your birth control on the Internet.
17
As a young woman, I don’t understand why men are making decisions on our bodies. Roe vs Wade affirmed women have a constitutional right to have safe and legal access to abortion. This right should never be at a danger of being overturned.
In stead of overturning this constitutional right, why don’t you politicians focus on putting an end to issues that lead to women’s choices to have abortions. Focus should be on eliminating rapists, educating people on the contraception, etc. Banning abortion will not solve any part of the core issues.
14
I'll start by saying that I didn't read this piece, and that I'm waiting until it's clear that Roe is overturned before spending more than a moment on this subject.
1
@BayArea101 That's what a lot of Americans who sat-out the 2016 election said about the laughable possibility of someone like Trump becoming President.
3
Yes. Look the other way until it's too late. Good plan.
4
Candidate Trump could not have been more clear that there should be "some form of punishment." The forced birth movement attempted to walk it back at the time, but they appear to have taken that as a mandate.
7
There are over 20 Red states attacking, limiting and now denying women’s rights on issues around birth and birth control. Alabama was elected to carry the big ball.
Clearly, all of the responsibility for not getting pregnant is solely the woman’s, as the GOP limits women’s access to birth control.
Healthcare remains privatized and independent carriers can enact internal policies that stipulate the age a woman must be to be eligible to receive birth control. That's in keeping with the "Conscience Rule" protecting health care workers who refuse to provide care that violates their religious beliefs, such as performing abortions.
They defunded Planned Parenthood because Planned Parenthood to specifically reduce access to abortions, without regard to all the health services PP provides. The intent is to nationally cut abortion from all women’s healthcare services, making it easier to criminalize.
Now Alabama ups the ante test the question, Is abortion a legal medical practice?
If successful at cutting abortion out of healthcare and making the "abortion act" a crime, instantly, a generation of women will be FORCED to be the host, the incubator for an unwanted pregnancy and the parent to an unwanted child whom only the women will be financially responsible for, for the rest of their lives. And shamed if they are not up to the task.
Where's the balancing law (before rape) carrying an equally horrible criminal penalty on men forcing their unwanted attentions on women?
7
This is blatant fear mongering. Nothing is going to happen in most states. Life will go on. Somewhere down the road, there may even be a solution to this very difficult problem, but everyone screaming at each other is going to accomplish nothing.
2
I’m sure the pregnant 14-year-old in Alabama is so very comforted by your words.
4
@William you’re a man...your opinion is irrelevant especially as it relates to how women should feel as they lose their body autonomy.
5
@William, that is much easier for you to say as a man.
1
This comment may be a bit off the immediate topic, but what about right-to-die legislation? Citizens are increasingly seeking control over their bodies as they succumb to living hell at the end of life and agonizingly painful diseases with no natural end in sight. As in the abortion controversy, patients, their families and physicians support the gamut of opinions on when or whether people have the moral right to end their own lives. And this slope is slipperier.
The weighing in by the Supreme Court on the definition of personhood will have a slew of unintended consequences. And this in a land that ostensibly values personal freedom.
258
Indeed. Pending legislation in Texas would basically invalidate DNR orders and require all means necessary to preserve an elderly person's life. From a moral perspective it is hei ous. From a financial perspective it ignores the absurd costs. Our legislators are ignorant and are being elected by even more ignorant voters.
55
@EAK
I had abortions when I was young. Now that I'm old, I have plans for my suicide. Couldn't stop me then; won't stop me now. (Thanks for your thoughts.)
34
Since Trump has convinced his base that end-of-life decisions for newborns is also abortion, I bet that right-to-die legislation is going to become quickly muddled with anti-abortion legislation.
10
Dear Ms. Goldberg,
I don't care about Abortion one way or the other. If a woman wants to have an abortion 12 times a year, year after year that's fine by me.
What I object to is upper class women getting abortions so they can have and keep a nice lifestyle while protesting keeping Abortion legal is really for the poor! Should Abortion be used as a method for birth control then state so.
One last thing to observe, the Anti-Abortion protesters were out protesting in extremes like South Dakota winters, rain and hail storms etc. in every state, while the Pro-Choice people were counting on the U.S. Supreme Court to always keep Roe v. Wade legal and only went out when the news media would cover a big event!
3
Well, if there's going to be a roundup - go after the men, too. How many of these leaders would be in jail as a result of decisions they suggested, endorsed, ordered, paid for, winked at for their girlfriend or mistress or some random hookup?
How many of the men pushing these laws from the pulpit or the elected office have paid for abortions already?
It might be useful if women could press for child support before the child is born - in court, enforceable and on the court record.
11
We often look at nineteenth-century Americans as foolhardy and naive, but when our era is judged, we will be remembered no better. What sense does it make to outlaw abortion but to also limit access to birth control through the continued condemnation of Planned Parenthood?
7
if Roe is overturned, then access to birth control is threatened because the cases that preceded Roe that allowed birth control to be readily available are based on the same privacy arguments as Roe. Remember, providing birth control was illegal in some states until the late sixties. Eisenstadt v. Baird and Griswold v. Connecticut were recent cases when Roe was decided.
7
@Lona Thank you for pointing that out. Many women and men forget that birth control also is based on the same arguments. And if anyone thinks they will stop with abortion, they are nuts. This is about control and nothing more.
1
This isn't really about abortion, it's about control over women, our politics, our health and education, our very bodies. It's the last desperate ploy to keep us down. Some women are complicit and I will never understand that. Women need to stand up and vote these men out! This is a world-wide issue and women who are able to vote need to be educated and vote them all out!
20
In this day and age this shouldn't even be an issue for either side of the debate.
I believe that MOST reasonable people, including MOST conservatives, would be supportive of FREE birth control for ALL women of child bearing age, up to and including Plan-B.
Such a benefit should negate the vast majority of abortions for unplanned pregnancies, and leave the majority of abortions that are performed to be due to either severe malformations diagnosed in utero, or in cases of rape or when a mother's life is in danger.
Free birth control for all would be far less divisive, and would be far less expensive than all the downstream effects of unwanted/unloved children.
5
@Dan Free birth control definitely is divisive. It's divisive just to require insurers to cover BC pills as they would any other drug. It isn't logical, but religiously dictated ideas rarely are.
7
I disagree with you on your rosy prediction concerning conservatives and providing free contraception. I think it's more likely that conservatives will move next to criminalize providing birth control. Look at the cases that preceded Roe, Eisenstadt vs. Baird & Griswold vs. Connecticut, and legalized providing birth control to see where we might return. There are conservatives, like Justice Kavanaugh, who believe that all artificial contraception is abortion. Kavanaugh said so at his confirmation hearings.
6
@Lona,
I'm thinking more fiscal and pragmatic conservatives (I consider myself one). Yes, there are extremists out there that consider all birth control to also be a sin, but I do believe there are more than enough pragmatists out there who would be supportive of state or nationally provided free birth control. Or maybe one of our billionaires can step up and start a foundation that provides it and take it out of the legal/legislative arena entirely.
So sad. When Roe was passed, people hardly noticed. Then right-wing strategists of the Reagan era -- looking for an issue they could use to bring evangelicals into the Republican party -- got busy and drummed it up. They worked patiently to give people with a god problem a way to feel holy, and here we are.
5
@Jim Bob Is there no basic morality without God? I think there is, and should be. Even without the Ten Commandments it should be obvious that some things are simply wrong.
How about this for a compromise? Instead of abortion, surgically remove the embryo. Pro-life organizations can do whatever they need to keep the embryo alive and raise it up to be a God-fearing Christian. And the woman isn't forced to carry the embryo to term. Yes, it will be difficult if not impossible to make a living human adult out of an embryo removed so early. But that's part of the point. I guess pro-life women could try implanting it in themselves and carrying it to term. Good luck!
9
@Benjo Better yet, practice birth control. There's the rhythm method as well as various devices and pills that can achieve it easily.
1
Antoine,
No, saying "practice birth control" is not a better solution.
There will always be reasons that women get pregnant that will not be changed by fatuous statements made into thin air.
Women have a right to control their own bodies, including the right to an abortion.
Arrogantly presuming to tell women how to avoid pregnancy does not address the assault on their civil rights.
4
@Antoine Right, because the rhythm method is so reliable, because other methods never fail, and because pregnancies are never the result of assault (insert eyeroll emoji here)
4
It would seem to me that a decision of this import, with all of it's troubling implications and possible complications, should be reserved for pregnant woman and their gynecologists...not religious fundamentalists or Republican male politicians.
Do a majority of citizens really believe that the rights of women should be subverted by religious beliefs of others and political electability polls?
11
@PoliticalGenius Tell me again, how did women get the inalienable "right" to infanticide?
1
Criminalizing abortion doesn't lower the number of abortions. If they truly think abortion is murder, they should enact progressive policies that actually do lower the number of abortions.
10
Do we really think that the court will overturn Roe vs Wade? What seems to be missed is that Roe v Wade can be overturned without being overturned. All they have to do is let laws like the Alabama and Georgia laws stand. RvW was based on a right to privacy. It's not specified in the Constitution but there is support for that right in the fourteenth amendment and other amendments such as the first, third and fifth amendments The ninth is part of this by stating that the, "enumeration of certain rights" in the Bill of Rights "shall not be construed to deny or disparage other rights retained by the people." So, the Supreme court would be telling the country that our right to privacy is a myth. It is hard to imagine that. Not all rights are allowed. Papadopoulos can’t keep something he did private and then lie to the FBI. A government can take away that right. So, if a government can take away the right to lie, it might be ruled that they have a right to not allow abortions. That is where the fight is and we should be prepared for that. But if Roe is overturned, a lot will be the same. Those with money will just go to places where abortion are legal like nearby countries or D.C. Those without money will go to back rooms and basements. Maternal deaths will soar. The result of butchery Wil stay with women the rest of their lives. A twelve-year-old will have to pass along the genes of a drug addicted and alcoholic rapist. All of that is the same as before and they are bad enough.
2
@Ron: Government that criminalizes normal behavior is itself criminal.
1
It's always easy to justify and pass laws that will seriously impact girls and women.
At 16 I fell in love with a young man, who didn't have my best interests at heart, and when I became pregnant, I was torn between loving and wanting the baby to being terrified my parents would find out.
My sister gracefully broke the news to them, and I was sent away to another country to have an abortion. The guilt and shame that I felt afterwards lasted for years, however, with counseling I was finally able to forgive myself and move on.
It’s hard to believe that some people would wish to make an already difficult situation for parents, girls and women worse. The mother who decided to seek an abortion, would be burdened with an additional level of stress and concern regarding sentencing and they would possibly be asked to reveal the abortion doctor’s name who might also be sentenced.
An alternative to jail time would be to provide shelter, training and jobs for women. When they reach full-term, they would be fully prepared with the skills needed to support and care for their babies or to place their baby up for adoption.
4
Extremely high rates of preterm birth, C-section deliveries, infant and maternal mortality, and childhood poverty in RED states; yet, Republicans continue to exclusively focus on ending abortion rights. When will Democrats re-frame the probirth vs prolife debate?
11
Most people don't realize or remember that contraception, and even dispensing INFORMATION about contraception. was illegal in America before 1965. When the research was done for the development of The Pill, it had to be conducted in Puerto Rico, which had no anti-contraception laws like the USA. They were generally referred to as "Comstock Laws". Most states had them in addition to the federal injunction against birth control.
I am not making this up.
11
No, you're not making it up. Eisenstadt v. Baird and Griswold v. Connecticut were the birth control cases that preceded Roe. Some conservatives, like Justice Kavanaugh, have stated that artificial contraception is abortion. We could go back, if Roe is overturned, to the days when providing birth control information and birth control is illegal.
I'm please that you raise the point. I thought I was the only person who was seeing that. I've already had to explain to Millennial women that birth control is not a right and it can be legal. They can't understand that anybody could have ever done that.
3
Entera,
Contraception was not illegal in the US before 1965. Some states forbade disseminating information about it, but but drugstores carried condoms and doctors prescribed diaphrams.
And Puerto Rico was part of the United States and still is.
1
These laws have never been about the sanctity of life -they have always been about controlling women. It is time to reframe the conversation.
20
@Gracie Well Gracie, is there such a thing as "the sanctity of human life"? Is that simply an empty phrase? I get the impression that you think it is.
1
Overturning Roe won't outlaw abortion across the country, it just allows the states to determine the legality of the procedure (federalism). So for every Alabama there will be a New York where abortion is sand will continue to be legal. And it seems clear that as a response to the Trump administration many blue states are looking to expand the scope of legal abortion, ironically making abortion more available than before. So while those in red states may be inconvenienced by having to travel to another state to seek an abortion, the landscape is certainly not worse than pre-Roe America, despite what Ms. Goldberg may say.
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@Mike75: Overturning Roe disallows all claims to other rights and powers presumed to be reserved to the people that are not enumerated in the Constitution.
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@Mike75 It's an inconvenience to the wealthy to have to travel for an abortion; it's an impossibility for the poor and disenfranchised.
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For poor women and young girls, traveling to another state may be financially impossible. We'll return to the situation before Roe, where you could easily travel if you had money and resources. If you didn't have the money and resources to travel, you went to an illegal abortionist or tried to self-abort. If you were unlucky you died or became infertile.
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A Supreme Court decision overruling Roe v. Wade will divide our country in ways that it has not seen since the civil war. As some states continue to permit legal abortions, others will pass draconian prohibitions like the ones currently being enacted in Alabama and Missouri. Women with sufficient financial resources who are seeking abortions will be able to travel to obtain them. Poor women will resort to self or unsafe procedures. We will see, therefore, a modern day equivalent of the underground railroad to help those women. States like Alabama will consider the pro-choice activists to be criminals the same way they once declared Harriet Tubman to be a criminal. Alabama will demand passage of a modern day fugitive slave act so that women who obtain abortions in other states can be extradited for criminal prosecution. The stress on the Union will be at dangerous levels once again.
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@Charles L. Stress on the union? We're already there.
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@Antoine I agree, but a Supreme Court decision overruling Roe v. Wade will make it much much worse.
The Handmaid's Tale is only another version of the same story that is unfolding in front of our eyes.
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It seems obvious to me that anyone who wanted fewer abortions would support universal availability of preventive birth control. The fact that these states are not doing so makes it clear that this is a proxy for rolling back women's rights across the board. I call it the barefoot and pregnant strategy.
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The Democrats made a choice: they wanted immigration more then the right to choose. The Democratic Party elected Trump by making the rights of illegal immigrants their primary concern. They are doubling down on that policy today. Trump will be re-elected and abortion will be made illegal. All so people could do their moral posturing.
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And if that were even close to true, you might have a point.
Suggestion: listen to what Pelosi and Schumer actually said, and look at what they actually did, rather than taking Hannity’s word for it.
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@willt26 You're not doing "moral posturing"?
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Is it just me or are most aspects of American society going backwards? Women's and civil rights are being rolled back, bigotry in all of its forms is on the rise - the worst of America has been emboldened under the Trump maladministration and GOP. American conservatives are better termed regressives. It's a movement advanced by white men want to take the country back to the 1950s when, in their view, men were men, women knew their place and America was whiter. It's utterly crazy. What's worse is how much traction it has got. Why would anyone other than selfish, bigoted white men support the GOP in its current guise? Looking on from afar I fear that the United States is very nearly a lost cause, if it is not already. Certainly, it is heading full speed in reverse. If Trump is reelected in 2020 and the GOP hold the Senate that may be the last straw.
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@Andrew It’s not just you and it looks like that from up close, too.
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As a preacher I tell folks that this is not a perfect world. We have visions for a perfect world in which there would be peace, no violence, no accidents, no drunkenness or drug abuse, no pollution, no sexual abuse, no abortion, no bad decisions. In each instance we as a society have set boundaries for what is and is not acceptable, but none of them is total prohibition of behaviors which unfortunately are a part of being human.
Roe vs. Wade is a wonderfully constructed solution to a multifaceted problem. A smart and faithful society would want to protect it.
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Is there a non-profit fund started to fly poorer women who want abortions in these restrictive states to a liberal state for their desired abortion? I will contribute.
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@J Could we make that a bus ticket? Would help to revive interstate busses.
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@J I have seen references to several, I don't know the names but perhaps Google can help you. I know they are out there.
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People hate it when another person forces them to do something they disagree with. Perhaps the Democrats- should consider that as they push for tens of millions of fake asylum seekers to be allowed into the country. Many of us don't want that forced choice foisted upon us. Maybe both sides should start respecting the rights of citizens.
Tens of millions?
And which Democrats are oushing for this, please?
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willt26,
Nice try at deflection. These things are not equivalent.
You are not being personally harmed nor your rights being taken away by immigrants being granted asylum.
The true import of your post is that you would not defend the rights of women.
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I wonder at a country that celebrates its women engineers, military officers, judges and congressional leaders and would deny these very same women agency over their own bodies.
This is insanity.
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The behavior of anti-abortion individuals reminds me of what often happens when a person in a relationship with an addicted individual works to improve their own behavior or leave the relationship: The addicted person's behavior gets worse.
This makes me wonder about what motivates the type of anti-abortion person who behaves in ways that clearly harm women.
Do they feel they are losing the battle against subjugating women to the will of men? Do they hate women so much that loss of a nonviable pregnancy, a pregnant child, risk of death for the woman, or anyone refusing to bend to their will doesn't matter?
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There are a lot of pro choice feathers being ruffled which is not surprising. At least these people have had their lives spared. What about the lives of the unborn who have seen theirs abruptly ended through abortion. Who has defended them? Now it is those who are against abortion who are speaking out for them. We do not want to see any more deaths occur from this barbaric act. That is the goal of those who oppose abortion which is a vicious act against the innocent.
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@KMW - so how do you feel about miscarriages? Nature (or God in your case probably) abruptly ends the "lives" (that's your word, not the one I'd choose) of embryos every single day. So is nature barbaric??
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Most of the “unborn” would have been the children of impoverished mothers who didn’t want them. (Middle and upper class women and girls would have continued to get they abortions they needed.)
In many cases their lives would have been endless suffering.
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@KMW Removal of an embryo is not destroying a person, any more than contraception or masturbation is.
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One thing people should recognize is that people who call themselves "Pro-Life" need to also state whether they support the death penalty. If so, they are hypocrites and need to declare themselves "Pro-Death" instead.
Many who are "Pro-Life" are actually simply "Pro-Birth". They could not care less about the child's life or opportunities once birth takes place.
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@Phil Torgersen Completely ridiculous. There's a big difference between the murder of an unborn innocent child and a convicted killer. Surely you can tell the difference.
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If "Thou shalt not kill" has meaning for you, what exemptions to God's commandment do you make for yourself or your government? Have you asked your God about those exemptions you make?
"last month Texas legislators held a hearing on a bill that would allow women who have abortions to be charged with homicide and potentially subject to the death penalty."
Insane. Presumably, this is the "Culture of Life" we keep hearing about.
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I support the right to abortion, and reject the term “pro-life” for those who would seek to end the the legality of this decision between a woman and her doctor.
However, I applaud those states who criminalize incest even in the case of rape or incest. This inclusion recognizes that their belief is that a fetus has the same standing no matter how it was conceived. So at least they are not hypocrites in that way.
However, these laws are terrifying and women who are subject to them must become radicalized and fight for their right to choose if an abortion is right for them. If there is no act of sex, there is no conception. If and when women are fed up with these suppressive laws, they can easily withhold sex as a form of birth control. Things will change fast after that.
It gets stickier when the fetus is a result of rape or incest. These laws will force women to carry to term a pregnancy resulting from violence and perversion. This shows just how little these states think of women.
If I were living in any of these states, I would be packing my bags right now. Clearly they don’t want me, they just want complete control of my uterus.
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Too bad your husband was too selfish to seek a vasectomy after your third child. That burden is on him. After 5 pregnancies and 4 children, my mother in 1961 had her tubes tied because she was "done!...No more!" she said. I was 14 then and I still remember mom's relief. She didn't need dad's permission or anyone else's either. We lived in Central PA then. Maybe PA was more liberal then.
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First they abolish legal abortion.
Next is contraception.
Then comes "consent."
I'm considering getting my daughter a gun. It's time to Stand Our Ground.
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I wonder how many additional deaths added to all these easily identifiable mass genocides could be attributed to right wing religious tyranny that cannot be precisely quantified. I'm quite certain that if you add even the lowest imaginable figures into your comparative analysis with abortion statistics, you'd discover that pro choice based on constitutionaly protected personal freedoms is actually pro life. At the very least it gives at least one person a second chance at a decent life after a mistake or a crime. The issue isn't as simple as anti-abortionists would lead you to believe.
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As you recall the NYT did their fair share of slamming HRC for emails. So this is the result of Democrats not pulling together. Elections have consequences. We need to take a page from the Republicans playbook and stand by our candidate and quit all the dithering around.
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It is not lost on me that Roe vs Wade will be turned turned over by five men voting to usurp the rights of women to make decisions on their bodies and child bearing. So much for equal rights!
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@Plumberb It's called the Supreme Court, and that's why we have one.
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These are the same men who rant about Sharia law. Is this any different? I have no doubt that these men would terminate a pregnancy if it was the result of their extra marital affair, or if their daughter was pregnant by a man of a different race.
The same people who want to limit medicaid and cut food assistance and pre- school education want to force women to bring a child into the world.
Maybe, they should enact sensible gun legislation to protect the children who are already here.
The hypocrisy is stunning!
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Catholic extremists and Evangelist extremists who are responsible for these draconian views and laws are just like other religious extremists who are not only in the minority but believe only their ways of thinking are the correct way - and the majority of people who view things differently are in the wrong. These religious extremists also believe that their views should be law and everyone disobeying their views/laws should be persecuted and prosecuted. I never thought in today's America that religious extremists would be making draconian laws that restrict human rights for all women in this country. It is sickening. It is wrong. And women across America and the people that love them should rise up in protest to protect their human rights.
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The near fanatical approach Alabama and its governor have taken to approach this private decision for a woman is also coming from the state with the death penalty.
A very hypocritical stance when it comes to the 'sanctity of life' argument.
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@reid Sorry, but there's a big difference between the innocent and the guilty.
So the language of the Alabama law equates fetuses being aborted with children and adults being imprisoned, starved, abused and executed while watching everyone they know and love suffer the same fate. Putting aside one's beliefs on abortion, can we agree that this rhetoric conveys an strikingly impoverished notion of just what it means to be alive?
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I'm old enough to remember a 19 year old friend who flew from the west coast to the east in 1969 to have an abortion. A relative knew a friend of a friend who knew a pimp who performed them for prostitutes in a basement in the slums. She was sick and bed ridden for a week afterward. She was lucky, no infection, just blood loss. What a difference between that and one performed by a medical doctor in a clinic. We have been going backwards socially and economically since the 1990s. I keep hoping for the pendulum to swing toward progress, but from computerized spying to facial recognition to economic disparity to these new laws we continue to move toward authoritarian interference in the lives of other under the guise of promoting freedom.
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