Here in Georgia, we have Republicans who foment fear and rage by invoking the horrors of "Sharia Law!!!" and immediately proceed to impose extremist, religious-based laws on the rest of us. Those laws are passed by party-line vote by a caucus that is almost entirely male and entirely white, using one of the only two female Republican representatives (the other voted no) to be the face of the bill despite having absolutely no expertise or knowledge in the area. It was passed in the teeth of opposition by the medical community and in the full acceptance of the fact that Georgia has the highest maternal death rate in the nation. It was signed by a Republican governor who blatantly cheated, who closed down polling places, underserved others and purged voter rolls in areas where Democrats are prevalent, and who still managed only a .02% margin.
This is the future of Republicanism. Lie, fearmonger, ignore facts, suppress the vote, and marginalize and oppress, quite literally to the point of death, anyone who either disagrees or is expendable.
Oh, and reward the behavior. Men will be eligible for a personal tax exemption for fetuses.
45
I’m gonna throw my support behind the Bill requiring Mandatory Vasectomy and Public Offender Registry for Men who Impregnate Women who want an Abortion.
Never heard of it? Let’s make a motion in the GA assembly.
Why is that not bundled with this unconscionable anti-choice misogynistic drivel from the GOP?
40
Reading over all these comments I hope this:
May those fighting for the continued right to pregnancy termination also fight as hard for the right-to-die laws for people who are ill -- laws that are stuck in a morass of denial and debate, usually due to the religious cadre. You do fight for those, right, as you fight for the authority to terminate a pregnancy?
15
There is a lot of concern from pro choice folks about the current state of abortion because of the successful efforts of the pro life movement. The pro life folks have made great strides in helping place strict provisions on abortion and are continuing this very important endeavor. The movement has only grown in recent years with more people getting actively involved. We have young, old, men and women getting into the act. It is very encouraging to see the positive results after so many years when it appeared we were not making any headway. We have soared in recent years and there is no stopping. The pro life movement is stronger than ever.
2
One of the things that is most bothering me right now is this: If the women of Georgia are making a noise around this, I haven't heard it.
Where is the mass walk out from all Georgia universities? Because if I were a young woman studying in Georgia, I would be looking to transfer in January. Moving to Georgia from another state is akin to giving up your freedom—you can't even travel to another state for an abortion once Georgia gets it's grubby dirty hands on you.
Where is the mass protests from all the working women? I think a work-stoppage would be quite appropriate.
Where are all the lawyers? If I were a lawyer in Georgia, I would be looking for ways to test the laws but also to test the men behind it. Let's try and legalize a national imposition on vasectomies or a ban in Viagra, on the grounds that Viagra can hurt women. Get creative, ladies.
Where is the social media backlash? Give me the names of the companies to boycott. Home Depot? Good—going to Lowes. Coca Cola? Great—drinking some home-made lemonade. Delta? Flying United now.
Our reproductive freedom is at stake. Period.
213
Millions of sperm are released with each ejaculation. There can be no unintended pregnancy without those sperm. Yet we still treat pregnancy and childbearing as a punishment to women who have sex, as if men had nothing to do with the process. And politicians, who seem to know nothing about how the whole process works pass laws codifying the absurd. We should force each man in this country who has caused a pregnancy to donate one kidney to save a life. Pro-life indeed.
35
This is nothing short of a conservative assault on women.
14
Time for women in Georgia to seek asylum in California.
Someone please publish a list of every state and business we can boycott.
19
Last year, due to fibroids, I had to have a total hysterectomy. Turns out I couldn't have planned it better.
4
Women who live in Georgia and Alabama: please pack up and join us wacky liberals in our states. There's more work opportunities and more respect for your rights. They don't respect you. So remove yourselves from their company. If enough of you vote with their feet, then they will get the message.
15
It is hard to credit that anyone could religiously believe that having a heart beat makes any living thing a person. This delusional nonsense debases humans to the same status as pigs, chickens, fish and every other animal with a heartbeat.
The "pro-life," anti-person zealots pushing this absurdity might think themselves nothing more than living things with heartbeats along with the pigs, chickens and cattle that they order killed to sate their lust for tasty flesh, but I refuse to think that being a person is something so trivially common in the animal kingdom.
4
Glad to see someone cares for the thousands of lives lost due to abortion. The real ones who have no choice.
2
Enough!
Male legislators should face a panel of women for questioning.
So many of them are stunningly ignorant, only caring about their own re-election at the expense of half of their populations. One of them even suggested taking the embryo from an ectopic pregnancy and putting it in the uterus - the uterus unprepared to support a pregnancy. We are talking about medieval level stupidity. It is embarrassing and dangerous.
This type of legislation in Georgia and Alabama is the christianist version of the Taliban, another male fundamentalist group. There is going to have to be some sort of broad economic backlash against states that keep putting out the word that they do not trust women or even care about the lives of women. Enough.
20
No more little blue pills too I assume? I mean it does take two...
6
Do Georgia women still have to pay taxes, even as their constitutional right are taken away and they are considered half a human?
21
Nice to know there is an alternative but women who use it will be prosecuted and some will go to jail or maybe being executed. It doesn’t lesser the threat to women in the near or far. Women are at risk and not only those who need an abortion. All women are bong targeted and we have no idea what the next thing will be that women should or shouldn’t do.
Relgious fanatics believe that women are disposable baby making machines. If they die, get another one. It doesn’t matter they are all alike. Pro lifers, even the women, actually feel women don’t deserve any value placed on their lives. Only the fetus is valuable NOT. Pro lifers don’t care about the fetus either and their actions prove it and the politicians they support confirm it.
Keep you religion in your home and stop trying enforce its rules through the government, the rules by the way that you can’t get your own parishioners, or your preachers, in your church to live by.
3
As a man, of some means, who has never known poverty, I can only suspect. I suspect that abortion is terrible. I suspect that you cannot find one woman who will say otherwise. I suspect that you cannot find one woman who will smile, in fond recollection, and suggest that it is an experience that every woman should have at least once. I suspect that it is a terrible experience; and, a terrible choice. I believe should remain a choice. Eliminating that choice will not eliminate abortion. Those with means, will travel. Those without, will become felons, or, be thrust deeper into poverty, by a government that increasingly turns its back on those least equipped to raise children. I suspect that prohibition of abortion will be as effective as drug, and alcohol prohibition.
I more than suspect that the need for abortion could be all but eliminated through easily accessible contraception, and education. I more than suspect that the abortion rate in such a world would be far lower than the rate under prohibition. Shouldn't that be the goal?
27
I am very interested that the author promotes using a pill to take away something the consumer may not want. I think all women should have used more common sense prior to coitus. I have raised six daughters and I encouraged them to make good choices. Evidently this generation of women does not want to take responsibility for their choices. I adopted three children already and would GLADLY adopt a dozen more. I am from Georgia and FULLY support the bill!!!
1
@SUZANNA KAY CARNEY: The notion that sex is strictly for procreation is abject nonsense. Couples long past child-bearing age retain youthfulness by persisting at it.
13
Many of us gen x-ers left the places of our birth after completing college. What happened because we fled to the coasts? We conceded the rest of the nation to the very people we couldn’t stand in high school and they have taken their revenge via the electoral college. We must either move back into the Midwest, the South, the boondocks and VOTE! If not, our decisions are being made for us by right wing extremists like Kemp and his posse.
9
@sb: The dependency of the importance of where one lives to the relevance of one's vote in the only nationally purported election in this highly mobile nation is one of its most profound insults to intelligence.
6
Why are men determining, dominating and forcing control over women’s reproductive/abortion rights, it’s legislative rape!
I remember watching a movie where a woman is in great pain delivering her first child turning to her husband screaming, “You did this to me”.
I’m unsettled by late term abortion as a birth control method of course. I’m very clear on the separation of church and state, especially when men are using it as a device to control the reproductive rights of women.
Maybe responsible men of unwanted children should be required to testify before a magistrate when an abortion request takes place. They did it, they should be held accountable for the decisions women are being denied.
We need wholistic accountability not governmental fire and brimstone! I still can’t believe the equal rights amendment to the constitution has yet to be ratified by all the states. Maybe this is the real issue here not a first heart beat?
7
Bear with me.
As I've said before, I think gun control falls to state law. We can't federally eliminate the 2nd Amendment without another amendment. However, we need federal law to ensure each state law is respected. Wyoming can have loose gun laws and New Jersey can have strict ones so long as the two don't meet. Otherwise, you're violating state sovereignty.
If you transport this same logic to abortion, things get weird. A 6-week abortion ban is effectively the same difference as passing a state law saying "We'll sell you the gun but bullets are illegal. If you buy bullets out of state, you can be charged with murder." Alabama is clearly violating the intent behind federal abortion law.
But doesn't the state get to choose? If New Jersey wants to ban bullets, shouldn't they be allowed to? The federal government's responsibility is to ensure bullets from other states stay out of New Jersey. That is all. See how this gets weird?
This is why Roe v. Wade was simultaneously an awesome compromise but also extremely controversial. The ruling effectively decided human rights begin when you can live outside your mother. Approximately 20-odd weeks. A federally enforceable bench mark.
If conservatives get their way and overturn Roe v. Wade, how in the world do you plan on enforcing state sovereignty? Abortion bans are unenforceable. Especially in the age of prescription abortion. The challenge to Roe v. Wade should therefore be thrown out for no other reason.
Fine. Proposed new law: All males reaching puberty must have a vasectomy. Reversible upon Legal Marriage, with written consent of the Wife.
Seriously.
19
Yes, it's called civil disobedience.Time to organize.
7
Or women can vote en masse to rid themselves of these elected officials who passed these laws. Voting only for Democrats has never been more important.
10
So Georgia and other States policymakers are attempting to engineer a baby boom after more decades of personal and individual self-implemeted family planning. Like other good Communist leaders, the State of Georgia's central policy planners are now loosening restrictions on family sizes, and now all married couples can have more children. There is talk of banning misoprostol altogether, and amid aggressive propaganda drives, local officials are experimenting with additional police-state subsidies to assist individuals in abiding with the new Communist policies including new incentives such as clean and modern jail cells and police assistants that will even helpfully take you to the commode and monitor your every move to ensure you enjoy your stay.
3
The right wing hypocrites that are making this law will send their daughters to other states when unintended things happen. It is like the good Catholics in Spain sending their daughters to the UK. It helps them keep their pious images intact. Meanwhile, the poor that can't afford to travel pay for it. And we all pay for the unplanned children that the right wing doesn't want to help with welfare and education after the children are born.
10
I am in favor of mandatory paternity tests and consequent child support to follow a child whoever brings it up. That might change the debate somewhat.
4
Where is the equivalent legislation involving men? How about vasectomies, designed to kill sperm. Why is that medical procedure not stigmatized, criticized and regulated with a flurry of intrusive laws? Where are the waiting periods for men, pickets in front of urologists’ offices, sermons at church denouncing the evils of destroying your sperm? Why aren’t men probed and required to watch ultrasounds of their sperm wiggling around? Why are there no criminal penalties being legislated for doctors who perform vasectomies? Do you see how abortion politics single out women? Do you understand that a woman’s right to choice and privacy is just as important as a man’s?
9
So, we have better, safer, more high tech coat hangers. Guess we should be grateful.
The older I get the madder I get. How totally crazy to see women’s rights taken back 50 years, in my lifetime, by these self aggrandizing self righteous so called “Christians” who are so bent to control the body of every woman on earth that they will stop at nothing to achieve that goal.
If only women could be treated like persons instead of incubators. Guess that’s just too much to ask.
12
Evidently the Georgia legislators need to control women through their laws probably because they can't control them at home. To me it is amazing that they haven't voted to decriminalize beating or killing wives.
5
Ironic , Ireland , a very Catholic country , has managed to legalize abortion while here in America we are regressing to outlaw abortion by any means . What does that say about the hypocrisy of our lawmakers ? The freedom to worship as you want has been a basic right , but so has the very important separation of church and state made by the founding fathers escaping repressive laws . This is not about life but more about controlling the opposite sex and yes , those women who go along with not giving another woman a choice have been brainwashed by insinuating their religious beliefs on the rest of womankind . One must remember , you reap what you sow when basic freedoms are repressed and the laws of a country are devolved by religious beliefs . Right or wrong it is not up to us to judge but up to God .
5
Trump is pushing this agenda. You can be sure that if one of his daughters wanted an abortion it would not be a problem to him. This it the last vestige of the "Christians" love affair with him. He has broken almost every commandment and brags that he could break the one on murder and nobody would care.
We have privacy laws about health care, but women's private conversation with her doctor about abortion has become taboo. No man would stand for this intrusion into his private medical decisions. We need a law that all men have to have a vasectomy which cannot be reversed without permission of a designated female. These anti-abortion laws are made by men who are so devoid of brains that they think that a woman can know she is pregnant within 30 minutes of intercourse. We point fingers at other backward countries but ours is headed into the dark ages of church rule. We have separation of church and state and so called "Christians" have no right to dictate their backward ideas to everyone else. Trumps followers have no problem with following a trice married philander, cheat and liar but if he says he is against abortion, which he is not, they will kowtow. It is their rallying cry.
10
How is that the pro-life people are almost always also pro war and pro gun? Uh, every life is precious, right? As a candidate Kemp ran adds in which he brandished a gun and threatened to shoot somebody. Pro-life? Give us a break republicans!
16
This approach is disgusting and monstrous! I am as shocked to read the comments as the article, written by a woman, no less, which reveals only the deep disrespect of many NYTimes readers for their mothers, daughters and and sisters, many of whom have risked, will risk or are planning to risk their lives to bring more of us into this world.
Suggesting DIY abortions as a substitute for appropriate medical treatment is incredibly, shockingly ignorant and shows a complete lack of concern about the safety and well-being of women, especially young and poor women. DIY abortions, in states that have outlawed abortion, subjecting women to what additional horrors when something goes wrong at home? This treats abortion as if it's about as serious as a hangnail. How many women would choose this option - to suffer through a painful and frightening procedure without medical expertise, at home?
What could go wrong - as the prescriptions are apparently given out without any precautionary screening of the patient? What goes wrong with back alley abortions? Unmonitored and untreated by doctors, women turning to this method and experiencing complications would go to ER's, there encountering doctors possibly unprepared to deal with their condition, possibly hostile to them and then, as a final blow the women are exposed to criminal prosecution, anxiety and expense of legal repercussions, including who knows what - incarceration? Safe & reliable? Are you insane?
3
And how long before these same states which are so anti-women will ban these medications? By what right did the pharmacist claim "religious freedom" to not fill a properly prescribed medication? total sham!
Please Vote
5
I am running out of words to express my outrage and disgust. This is the 21st century. Women are not embryo machines. Nor are we subhumans, fit only for pleasure and baby-making. And this is emphatically NOT a theocracy.
All the "freedom of religion" baloney ignores the fact that there is more than one religion. Right wing extremist christians do not own the religious universe nor do they have any right at all to shove their baloney down my throat.
Enough.
People, stand up and stand together. We've defeated slavery, Nazism, and we will defeat this headlong dive back to the Dark Ages.
10
Not again! Decades ago I thought we had progressed in regard to so many personal choices. Now the same old nonsense. Cannot get rid of guns but can get rid of a woman’s control over her inner anatomy. These legislators are abysmally ignorant about the consequences of restricting choice.
11
Miso still allows women to have sex without risk of pregnancy. Good luck getting anti-abortion advocates to accept that.
1
How can one state make it illegal to do something in another state?!!
7
If I were coming of age in this society in this country I would be getting myself a permanent sterilization.
7
The law requires a small amendment: one convicted woman, one castrated man.
Fair and balanced.
18
Don’t boycott, Georgia, please! We were SO close to electing Abrams. Brian Kent only won by cheating and disenfranchising voters of color!
The political crisis we’re in is a numbers and geography game! We need an influx of thousands of dems. from NY, LA, Portland, Seattle. We need you to move here and help us flip this state for good! Not just Atlanta but Macon, Augusta, Valdosta, and the North Georgia mountains. Want to do most good? Find a red district and move there! Bring a friend.
Come on y’all! We’ve got avocados, kombucha, and plenty of sunshine. We have internet,too, and the biggest airport on earth. Join the rest of us #reSisters who already live here!
20
@sb
Forgive that misplaced comma, please. Typing on a phone...
2
The first time these lawmakers get their mistress pregnant the first thing out of their mouths is “You need to get an abortion”.
And they pay for it.
13
Georgia is paving the way for Christian Sharia law-- the dream state for Mike Pence. Expect the next wave of immigration into California to come not from places like Syria and El Salvador but true Dark Ages states like Alabama, Kentucky and Georgia.
18
These anti-Christ Southerners are trying to drag America to middle ages.
11
So couples who are carriers of genes for fatal diseases will not be able to have an abortion if a prenatal test shows the presence of such a disease, like Tay-Sachs. The parents will be forced either to forego having children entirely or to carry the pregnancy to term, not knowing whether or not the fetus is affected and then to risk giving birth to an affected child and being forced to stand by helplessly while that child deteriorates and ultimately dies. Thank you to all you idiot pro lifers.
No entity has the right to put individuals through such trauma. Perhaps if some of these narrow minded pro lifers found themselves in the same horrific situation, they might think differently.
16
Please stop calling these "heartbeat" bills. Stop calling the proponents "pro-life."
The abortion bans are penis bills, aimed at enshrining unfettered, unaccountable, unprotected straight penetrative male sex for largely older, conservative married men and the women who try and control them.
Conservatives haven't yet figured out a way to keep divorce down and the bedroom exciting in their own homes other than to make other people's sex lives and relationships as hidebound, "family-driven" and dishonest as their own.
10
By the way, make sure you don’t get fooled again: whatever they tell you when they’re running for office or the Court, these guys WILL come after your rights.
And don’t be fooled about where they’ll stop. It’ll be the morning-after pill next, and then IUDs, and then...and then...and then...
Try to vote this time, please.
16
In 2019, it is hard to credit that any could believe that having a heart beat makes any living thing a person with all the rights that come with personhood. This belief debases humans to the same status as pigs, chickens, fish and every other animal with a heartbeat.
The "pro-life," anti-person zealots pushing this absurdity might think themselves nothing more than living things with heartbeats along with the pigs, chickens and cattle that they order killed so as to gorge on their tasty flesh, but I refuse to think that being a person is something so trivially common in the animal kingdom.
A beating heart does not a person make.
7
Shame on Georgia or any state that believes they can control a woman’s body. The choice to continue a pregnancy does not belong to any government. It is a choice only a woman can make. Our Supreme Court must never allow religious beliefs to justify ending Roe v Wade. Abortion should never be forced on a woman, but the right to one should never be taken away.
10
The pro life movement from decades ago doesnt exist anymore, like the Republican party. There is No 'working' with them on anything.
8
It's astounding what you take for granted when you don't vote, assuming that there was no way America could give someone like Donald Trump the unfettered authority to reshape the federal judiciary.
5
Sorry Cari, but abortion is murder pure and simple. That really should be obvious to all, and denying that fact doesn't make it OK. I find it amazing that folks can find justification for just about anything they want to do, including taking an innocent human life.
Antoine, nothing in this world is “pure and simple” as comforting as it might feel to believe that. A fetus smaller than a grain of rice is NOT exactly the same as a viable fetus and is not at all the same thing as a living human being.
12
GOP need to make laws to hold men, who make women pregnant who had to take that painful (both physically and, more importantly, mentally) route of abortion, equally responsible. And that's so easy these days with a simple DNA test.
If the women is "guilty" of being pregnant and abortion, then the men who is equal part of that "crime" must be held equally guilty- even if the guy loves beer and did that job to make the lady pregnant as teenage fun and later became US supreme court judge to decide such cases. Anything other than that is subversion of justice and, probably, unconstitutional.
7
It’s like The Handmaid’s Tale. What’s next? Needing my husband to sign a permission slip for my birth control?
14
Why is it we allow these southern states to craft their own version of America? This country is supposed to be bonded together by the constitution. If we allow states to carve out their own path predicated on a generous portions of institutionalized ignorance, what's the point of the "United" States of America? When women must flee to other states to seek out the rights bestowed to them by the constitution...something is just plain broke.
9
"A self-induced abortion with misoprostol can be a safe, reliable way to end an unwanted pregnancy."
It's certainly not safe for the fetus.
"First, we can work to fully decriminalize self-induced abortions. This is an area where all Americans, including pro-life Americans, can work together."
Ms. Sietstra, you are heartbreakingly naive if you think that "pro-life" Americans will agree to decriminalize self-induced abortions. Have you been paying attention?
The anti-abortion movement here opposes anything that gives women control over their pregnancies and they have become more and more radical in their stance.
They now have to be implored to give even a little concession in cases of rape and incest. They openly advocate prison sentences for doctors, and criminal penalties for women who travel out of state for an abortion. They make up junk science about how common forms of birth control are really abortifacients, and they're claiming that every fertilized egg is a full-fledged person under the law.
They have also turned themselves inside out inventing ways to shame and frighten women out of having an abortion, from mandated ultrasounds to fraudulent "pregnancy crisis centers" that feed women lies about the supposedly terrible lifelong toll of abortion. And yet somehow, you think THESE people will support women having access to a safe abortion pill that they can take in the privacy of their own homes?
Know your enemy. Just by allowing yourself to imagine that anti-abortion forces are acting in good faith out of genuine concern for women and children, you've already lost. Just stop. Please.
11
I would really like to know, in conservative states how many voters, particularly women push the "Republican" button since that is what they have done all their lives and abhor the thought of voting for a Democrat.
Then that very unfortunate pregnancy comes along and they need an abortion. Yes it does happen to you, your or your child.
How about thinking ahead and wonder just exactly what you would do if you (or daughter, or granddaughter) got pregnant with a child that you simply could not afford to raise or afford the social the stigma of being pregnant.
Think! Vote for Democrats if you don't want the minority social conservatives ruling your life. Which is worse, the social stigma of voting Democrat or spending your life in jail for murder for birth control.
5
Abortion has Given us Reagan, Bush 2 and now Trump. Once banned, there is a larger majority of people who do not vote who will. Isn't unfortunate that things must get very bad before they get better. However the restrictions are here to stay. It is all about over reach.
Chuck from Ohio
The goal of these punitive, anti-women laws is to control women. The zealots and GOP cynics who cater to the zealots hate that legal contraception and abortion give women the ability to decide if and when they will have children.
They have no interest in the actual children born to women who do not want or cannot aafford them.
The governor and residents of Georgia who supoort this law are beneath contempt.
4
How would the rape, incest, life of mother exception work? Would the woman have to file a police report and bring a copy with her to the doctor's office? Would a simple accusation suffice to green light the abortion, or would there have to be a guilty plea (in my county, cases average 120 days to adjudicate)? Does the doctor have to file some kind of medical report with someone? And, most importantly, WHERE are these state budgeteers going to get all the money this is going to cost? Medicaid, WIC, SNAP, subsidized housing, foster care, shelter care, care for the disabled, paternity suits, childcare payments, lawsuits, etc.
3
Inducing an abortion is not a "pregnancy loss." Pregnancy loss is independent of the action of the mother. Once again, abortionists want to lie about language to protect their trade.
The political and religious right are managing to bankrupt the influence of their own agenda. The drugs of today will be everywhere. Back room abortions a thing of the past. They are lost in legislation and the patriarchal power women are coming to replace.
Those who call themselves "pro-life" must surely support compulsory donations of blood, tissues and organs to save lives, right? Right now, there is no law that requires anyone to donate even a drop of blood that is necessary to save a life, but certainly these good people will change that immediately.
After all, "pro life" could not possibly mean that only pregnant women should be forced to have their bodies invaded for the sake of another.....
11
Our entire health system is under attack, esp for the weak and vulnerable.
It's the same thing with the "opoid crisis". People who really need the stuff to alleviate pain have to live in anxiety or full-on agony because those patients and doctors are being attacked by police state methods to serve a war of some sort on people who can't fight back.
This is really out of control and too far an over-reach by government.
It's as if every facet of our healthcare that works is being taken away, many times by falsified data or very inverted belief systems.
It's getting crazier all the time now
How much better a world this would be if agnosticism were to replace clerical mind-slavery.
2
It may be true that misoprostol results in the desired effect, but as long as any legislating body in America is enacting laws that enslave womens' uteri or interfere with their right to control their own bodies by whatever agency they deem appropriate, then we have a huge problem in this country.
3
My understanding and opposition to abortion was formed in Medical School where I learned a fetus does not replay evolution. Forged in Residency where I served for 6 months in a Planned Parenthood. I know what happens there. The gallows humor. The quiet weeping in the recovery area. The reassembling of body parts to make sure no retained “products of conception “ were present to cause complications. Oh, and the complications happened. The OB/GYN residents hated the PP clinic, not so much for abortion, but for the harm to the pregnant women. Uterine perforations. Post-abortion hysterectomies. Endometritis. And more. Seemingly, nearly every week. And the OB service had to pick up the pieces. While respecting the autonomy of women, aside from violent acts it is the autonomy of women that brings about conception. And that of a man. So what is this conceptus? It is ontologically and genetically human, as we all were at that same point. What we have here is a collision of personal rights and autonomy, and I must stand for the weaker party. Sorry.
The glaring fact that the US and its history of self determination is now far more restrictive and punitive than Ireland with its abortion stance is jaw dropping.
And a major threat.
What's next, forced pregnancies by removing access to contraception?
Shameful.
1
I'm curious to know if Republican party and right-wing fundamentalist judges like Kavanaugh type people would support penalizing the man, who made the woman pregnant, equally guilty for the "crime" those two people committed? what about a law that would mandate
any men in any Red state to sign a written statement to take full responsibility in case the woman get pregnant? Yes, they may love beer and can rape the women while drunk but they must take the responsibility for that, even when they might not be a judge in the US supreme court.
1
Thank you. I am furious that I have to, again, march for women's rights to own our bodies. The evil dark ages are here again. Women, speak up. And wear those pins!
3
That is when and where you see that the USA are not a modern nation. They re-enacted archaical religious ideologies from the old world.
Worse they moved forward with corrupted philosophical ideas from a time of ignorance cast into mystiques.
But most Americans don't know the history of religions and philosophies in the USA . Shakers, Quakers, Mormons, Evangelists, etc... they don't know where they come from.
Americans think that these ideologies are actual truths of today. And they believe in those ideas as such. They don't know what history or philosophical ideas produced these sects.
1
Home Depot, UPS, Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, Pulte Realty. I'm letting them know what I think about what's happening in their home state.
4
The problem is that people with connections and money are able to have abortions. I recall before Roe vs. Wade a devoute Catholic couple were able to obtain a physician to perform an abortion on the woman. It was just called a needed D and C. If someone has money and connections they can get it done no matter where they live.
3
So I'm in the minority here, being a pro-lifer. However, I find it interesting to take in other points of view. I think the reason we see things so so differently is that as a pro-lifer, I view that "fetus" as a human life. A zygote may not be able to live on its own outside the womb, but that doesn't make it any less of a human life in my opinion. When you see a fetus as a human life, everything changes. Abortion becomes the taking of an innocent life, or murder. Any law that restricts abortion saves a life that is just as important as any person's outside of the womb,not about restricting woman's freedom. A woman should have the freedom to do what she wants with her own body, just as a man. However, for both of them, that freedom ends when it begins to cross someone else's freedom or life, and that includes the unborn. I could write more, but I'll stop there.
3
@K Prempeh
The partisan will never acknowledge either your POV or your right to hold a POV that challenges their own.
Clinton’s “safe, legal, and rare” implicitly put the responsibility on society to take the gravity of abortion seriously. Pro-choice was just the first step to put our now gender-motivated hands around each others’ throats.
You read nothing about the shame of divorce and the responsibility of being male and responsible. No, instead we read about the single mother graduating Harvard Law.
Music lyrics, especially in the Black Rap genre, mock women.
Women “compete” sexually, chasing ‘equality’.
The fashion industry, abetted by Size 4 models, objectifies women. Then we turn around in horror at Anorexia’s rampant destruction and hold “body image” counseling sessions.
This is what ripping up the so-called moral code looks like.
To fully liberate each of us and enlarge our Rights, we overlooked the collateral damage it would have on society’s Responsibilities.
The one barrier to social Utopia is humans’ free will. I would far rather have a society of modesty and mutual accountability than the slow train wreck we are witnessing now born of liberation. Both worlds impose unpleasant restrictions on our animal spirits.
1
Yeah, we know. And you’re perfectly entitled to believe that.
But it is a belief, not a fact. A religious belief. And a lot of us think that you don’t get to shove that belief on everybody, that good or bad, right or wrong, it’s an issue that needs leaving to a girl or woman and her doctor and whoever else she chooses to involve.
How’d you like it if we were running around screaming and blocking your entrance to your church or whatever, on the grounds that your belief in an invisible sky-god is bad for you, bad for your kids, and bad for the country? That science proves the whole thing’s ridiculous?
8
@K. Prempeh
Yet it is not men who are affected by this, is it? Men aren't being made slaves to their body functions, are they?
5
Fascinating argument b Carl Sietstra. I don’t know why evangelically supported politicians would support the distribution of misoprostol. We are in a religious war.
Republicans want the creation of life, no matter what the consequences for the child. They won’t vote for the healthcare for these unwanted children, nor for taxes to ensure their well being as they grow. They’re not going to vote for the distribution of misoprostol.
Wealthy Republicans, on the other hand, will fly their pregnant daughters to regions that offer abortions, should the pregnancy be inconvenient. This happed to a Republican friend of mine in the 1960’s who flew to Puerto Rico for an abortion.
The convenient thing about misoprostol is that it can be made available to Republican families who don’t have the resources to fly to areas that allow abortion.
We’re still fighting the war for freedom of choice for all women. Distributing misoprostol underground doesn’t end this war. But we’ll have to prepare fo the day that trump’s Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. Then, it won’t be misoprostol that solves the problem. It will be people taking to the streets.
12
This legislation is designed specifically to be barbaric. The right-wing Religionists want to force the SCOTUS to specifically revisit Roe. There are two things that make this particularly despotic. First, the legislation itself is so inhumane and delusional that it makes one question the very sanity of today's anti-abortionists. Second, Roe will not be overturned. At least not by the court as it is currently configured.
Chief Justice John Roberts will do everything he can to prevent Roe from being overturned. At some point, he may not be able to stop it, but at this point I believe he will vote to protect Roe. John Roberts, will do everything he can to preserve the legacy of the Roberts Court. Overturning Roe, will destroy that legacy and he knows it. That singular vote will place the Roberts Court in the horrific position of taking away the individual rights of 50% of the population. And due to that injustice, I believe John Roberts will vote to preserve Roe; and render all of these truly perverse 'anti-abortion' laws a waste of time.
2
@Bryan: There is only blatant dishonesty in the legal interpretation of "establishment of religion" in this nation of lies upon lies. It means "faith-based belief", interpreted into modern vernacular. All these fake "originalists" are in denial that the US Constitution outlaws legislation that treats faith-based beliefs as scientifically established facts.
It is difficult to accept the “pro-life” arguments when I am willing to bet that many of these same legislators are the same ones who look the other way when confronted with the 1.4 million gun deaths in the U.S. since 1970.
19
This is simply "The handmaid's tale" in the making.
10
Democrats should take the lead on agreeing to some concessions so that Georgia and others don't feel compelled to put these restrictive laws in place..in the first place.
It's the same with guns. Republicans should take the lead and agree to some concessions so that New York and others don't feel compelled to put restrictive laws in place..in the first place.
1
Make no mistake about it. These laws should be unconstitutional. They turn women into slaves, people who have committed no crimes but are forced into involuntary servitude to someone else's religious belief.
Women are being told that they don't have the natural human right to control their own health but must let themselves be used by a more or less organized collection of cells that is existing only by feeding off of her own body. A collection of cells with no consciousness, no plans, no hopes or dreams, no capacity to love or hate, and no ability to experience pain.
On the latter point, pain experience would be useless and counterproductive because growth alone would cause it. The purpose of pain is to create an effective reaction to a stimulus. Imagine the excruciation of birth! We have no memories of pain in the womb or at birth because there was no consciousness able to have them.
The aim of all of this is to weaken women physically and destroy our spirits. The idea is that a pregnant woman's and mother's lives become so circumscribed that she will be forced to find a man to help support her.
The idea is to control men by giving them control over women.
11
It would be interesting to investigate other Georgia bills to that are simultaneously being passed into law. Stirring up public outrage, aside from building political capital among your base, is often a red herring to distract from something much worse.
2
If abortions are ultimately outlawed in various states, maybe the remaining pro-choice states (like New York) should embark on PR campaigns to entice women to move to states where their personal medical choices about their bodies are respected.
Then maybe once the male legislators in states like Georgia and Alabama start noticing the outward flow of females from their states, they'll begin to rethink their agenda.
7
The problem with those who call themselves right-to-life (which most really support life because they support war and capital punishment) is that they think they have a right to be another person's conscience. They want people to believe in God, usually the one they believe in, but they insist on promoting men's laws to force their beliefs on others. They want man made laws to their own moral standards. For those who call themselves Christian, at the end of the day, judgment will not be done by any human with religious credentials. It will be done by the God they believe in. Secondly, these same people believe that a woman loses her ability to make choices about her life when she becomes pregnant. What if she smokes or drinks while pregnant? What if she takes medication that may harm the child? What if she Should a woman be placed on 24/7 watch to ensure that a baby is not harmed in any way? Already women are put in prison who are addicts and pregnant. Is the unborn child a property of the state? That is what these government officials declare when they pass these reproductive laws that trump (no pun intended) the rights of a mother and her partner. These same government officials will deny that child the right to adequate food, housing, and healthcare once the child is born. They will also deny that child the right to a decent education. That is pure cruelty and lack of heart. Quit shining you halo's with meaningless laws.
8
No single religious denomination has the right to hijack women’s rights. Should the Supreme Court allow that to happen, the US will be ushering in a period of civil disobedience and political organization the likes of which it has never witnessed. Women will mount a well financed campaign to defeat any and all of the white, mostly Republican men who have allowed this to happen.
Women are smart, organized and financially able to do this. Bet on it.
34
Supreme Court? Kavanaugh has no real respect for women, the other trumpian seems too religious, too right wing. The situation is abominable.
1
Really? Sadly from what I see in this passive country of ours I see no evidence of priviledged white woman doing much at all. I mean, no uprising about plutocrats killing the environment, or pure Orwellian government or the complete collapse of a functional insurance and health care system? I'm afraid if I was betting actual work earned money, with my head not my heart, I would have to bet against you. No, I think we are looking at Republic of Gilliad here. Right before our eyes. Today. Now.
@Lynn as a Canadian, the US Constitution is a document that I tread very carefully around but I wonder how the constitutional purists like Gorsuch will dance around a document that has freedom at it’s heart.
Incidentally, the abortion is increasingly in the news in Canada as trumpy nationalism is on the rise here.
what would happen IF women were forced to have babies and refused to bring them home? adoption for baby and jail for mom? if 1,000,000 American women did it yearly, then the GOP might undo these unjust laws across the country.
17
Actually, they’d cheer.
Providing the babies were ostensibly white, that is.
1
As a civilized society, we urgently need to come to some sort of reasonable consensus around when a human life begins. Once reasonable people agree on this fundamental, we should make all safe means available to both sexes to prevent or terminate any and all unwanted pregnancies that precede this stage. The cost to the woman, society and the earth's limited resources of uncontrolled or forced breeding is just too high. It is grotesquely irresponsible to do otherwise. This issue has been perversely polarized to manipulate the ballot box. Shame on everyone who contributes to this disgrace.
13
@Liesa C.
The issue isn't that an embryo isn't human. It is the State denying a woman autonomy and agency, placing her in a subordinate position without the full rights of a citizen.
Organs, body parts, bone marrow etc cannot be taken from a corpse without legal consent. So a pregnant woman, or possibly even one would could become pregnant, would have fewer rights to her body than a corpse.
6
@Liesa C. Exactly what percentage of the population has the medical expertise to determine this "consensus"? And what about women whose lives are endangered by pregnancy, or who find out late in pregnancy that the fetus has a serious defect? Sorry, but I don't want other people voting on what happens to my body. That is between me and my doctor.
10
Why are women’s lives subordinate to the fetus? In fact, why are all lives after birth apparently subordinate to the fetus? With children dying from hunger or guns or lack of access to medical care in our “first-world” country, how have we come to be dictated to by a fundamentalist minority who believe only the non-born are in a state of grace? This is absolutely the Handmaid’s Tale.
8
The liberal reaction to this law is typically and hopelessly out of touch. Screaming "patriarchy" and "sexism" isn't going to change the mind of a single conservative or red-stater, neither is going after their faith or their intelligence. Pro-choice activists have been doing this for 40 years and it hasn't gotten them anywhere. For pro-life conservatives, it's genuinely about life. The Georgia law is straightforward, no abortion after a fetal heartbeat. Obviously for conservatives, this is all about "saving the life" of a person from being killed. Yet liberals NEVER address this. They NEVER bother to try to argue why they believe this isn't ending a life. They only talk about a woman's "right to choose". "Right to choose" means NOTHING to conservatives because they believe murder is far worse than an individual's right of choice being trumped. Until liberals start addressing this directly, they're not going to make any head way in red states. But if they keep talking about the patriarchy and sexism and bashing Christianity, they're going to have the same results as they've had the last 40 years.
6
@Alex
Then why don't conservatives support gun control? Guns end lives too.
33
@Alex
Abortions have no party affiliations. If you think conservative women and their daughters don't have abortions, your mistaken. Abortion clinics don't have forms that ask if you're a Democrat or Republican.
14
@Alex Having several die-hard anti-abortion activists in my family, I can tell you that underneath it is really not about life. That is the rationale they use (and they lie to themselves about it as well). This is why they have no compunction about starving social support programs that would help actual children, and voting for politicians and policies that kill children through pollution and environmental destruction. Talk to any of them for more than five minutes and concerns about the fetus disappear, and it is all about women having sex who shouldn't, old fashioned "morality" slipping away, the "traditional" family being supplanted - in other words - it really is about patriarchy and control over women, not life.
24
I’d be a lot more convinced the GOP gave a darn about babies if they didn’t cut funding for prenatal care, SNAP and education. Giving birth is dangerous, particularly when delivering a baby in a hospital costs $10,000, assuming no complications. Where’s the morality in forcing a woman to carry a baby to term if you then deprive her of the care to deliver it safely or feed it afterward? Unless your real interest isn’t the baby but punishing women for having sex. (Apparently we somehow get pregnant all alone, without male involvement. Not sure how that works, unless an angel is flying around impregnating people.)
32
@JLW You make a good point, but it's really not the same issue. I agree many things should change that would allow more children to be welcomed into this world and help them to prosper. But the expense of childbirth doesn't justify murder.
If a national boycott of North Carolina was what it took to get its horrible anti-transgender HB2 law repealed, I see no reason why the state of Georgia should not be treated the same for its misogynistic law.
38
@Randy Jones
Agree! Don't vacation there, don't visit there, don't do business with a company HQed there, don't send you kids to college there. Don't attend conferences there.
Who wants to go to such a place anyway!
I thought Roe vs Wade decided this 40 years ago? How are states even allowed to do this, anyway. Stop them!
3
The main reason I NEVER voted Repunlcan , was this issue. I remember my mom, who is Republican saying Roe vs Wade was a constitutional guarentee to abortion rights.
Soon there will be Scarlet letter states if this nightmare continues.
24
If women can use miso then what’s the point of these abortion laws? To make conservative lawmakers feel better about themselves? It astounds me that conservatives could care less about Mother Earth and the climate but every baby should be born. Without a climate the abortion devalue is moot. What a huge waste of resources and time.
10
Please, please don't refer to them as 'pro-life'. Anti-abortion is who they are. Don't give them the 'pro-life' description. They don't care about life. They care about power.
39
@sophia -- But "anti-abortion" is also misleading, bc some people who oppose abortion nonetheless support abortion rights.
The accurate terms, tho they're unwieldy and that's why newspapers don't use them, are: pro-abortion-rights and anti-abortion-rights. If everyone started using them, in time we could abbreviate them as pro-AR and anti-AR -- accurate and concise.
This debate isn't going away any time soon, unfortunately, so we've got plenty of time to start using and getting used to those terms.
“Coercive birth movement” is my label for these power seeking legislators.
2
The author appears to believe the way to avoid going backward is to go underground? Not right.
Also the author should correct the sentence to read "before many WOMEN know they are pregnant".... Nature gave the human female the ability to generate new people. Never men.
Aside from that these laws are another indication that the Patriarchy is on it's way out!!
3
I think the author provides some very practical answers for women in states with draconian anti-abortion laws. However, it's important to remember that all of the actions she outlines would be illegal under the new Georgia law. The law makes using misoprostol to end a pregnancy a felony that can be charged as first degree murder. The person who facilitates the use of misoprostol as an abortifacient would be guilty of conspiracy to commit murder (10 years). I don't know how the state would monitor the online use of misoprostol, but I also don't know how they would monitor miscarriages.
Both doctors who perform abortions and women who have them could be charged with first degree murder, potentially a capital crime. Women who miscarry due to alcoholism or drug use could be charged with second degree murder (10 to 30 years). Women who go out-of-state for an abortion could be charged with conspiracy to commit murder (10 years). This really is Orwell's Big Brother come to life.
And if the state can monitor and control your health care choices, what else could it control?
28
With enough pomp and circumstance to celebrate the second coming, Georgia's Republican governor, a genuine Trump boy Friday, signed this new abortion ban. Consequences mean nothing to him as evidenced by his despicable campaign ad showing him with a shotgun pointed at a young man. Threats by film makers to reconsider their presence in my state are laughed off.
It's not so much who is running this train wreck but where it's headed and when will it get there.
19
I'm an old woman. I know what the world is like when abortion is illegal. It ain't pretty. Women die for no reason. Men are their seemingly usual selves today pontificating about "babies" and delighting in controlling women and their bodies. We already went through this fight once and we are prepared to do it again. Mark my words men - you will NEVER win this fight.
37
@BA Have you ever consider that the father also has a right to his offspring?
People who oppose abortion believe that a human being is formed at conception. Science supports this. Pregnancy doesn't happen randomly, like catching the measles or the flu. It occurs only when a man and a woman have sex. Sometimes, even contracepted sex results in pregnancy. It is a legitimate position to believe an unborn human being has a right to life, and that it is not cruel and unusual punishment to put laws in place that protect the unborn person. If being pregnant will pose an undue burden on a woman, there is a way to prevent pregnancy (don't have sex during the fertile times), and this is the more ethical approach to the problem of unwanted pregnancy than killing the unborn human.
5
@cjchus, nobody denies your right to believe that the fertilized egg is ensouled at conception. This is a personal, religious belief, not a scientific fact.
I suspect most people opposed to abortion at any stage are really opposed to women having sex without "consequences." I think if you scratch the surface, most of these people support the death penalty and oppose family assistance.
5
@cjchus
Studies have shown that many women have multiple ovulation cycles within a given month.
@SandraH. I don't think you're right about people who oppose abortion and the nonsense that they think they should have "consequences." All pro-lifers I know are motivated by ethical convictions about the right to life, period. Concern for the mothers is also paramount, which is what prompted my comment about how to actually avoid pregnancy. It's a weird world we live in when most people think pregnancy is a disease that results from failure to use contraception. And, lastly, any newly formed embryo does have all the scientific markers it needs to meet the "Human being" definition.
Here on Vancouver Island the demand for surgical abortions has dropped considerably, replaced by drug-induced abortions. So, yes, it's an alternative. Mind you, abortion in Canada is a medical procedure (it is covered by health insurance) and not a legal issue. Women are trusted to make their own decisions about the control of their bodies. This is as it should be.
But back to the US. I am enraged that the American Taliban persists in treating women as second-class citizens -- and that women put up with it. I was living in Austin when Roe v Wade was decided --- Austin is significant as Sarah Weddington was the attorney who won the case and was later our elected representative --- and I am depressed to see that decades later American women are being denied a basic right.
As I keep saying, if men could get pregnant this wouldn't be an issue.
32
1. First, on wording. The author is correct to refer to women undergoing ‘forced pregnancy’. However, the author is incorrect to use the term ‘pro-life’. When I terminated my accidental pregnancy, I chose my own future, or my own ‘life’ if you will. Additionally, by using the oppositions words, ‘pro-life’ the author undermines here very own arguments!
2. It is wrong to leave women no option but to take hormone modifying pills, especially as they are not near 100% effective. I chose to terminate my accidental pregnancy in-clinic. It was a 15 minute procedure. It did not involve waiting to see if a pill actually worked. Every woman must have this option.
3. The author refers to use of misoprostol for first trimesters. While tackling unwanted pregnancies in the first trimester is certainly important, it’s also imperative to address the ability to terminate second and third semester pregnancies. Women terminating pregnancies in their third trimester do so because of a risk to their own health or due to a fetal abnormality. Forcing a pregnancy is both dangerous and inhumane.
26
I read the well-written, thoughtful article, but think there's another way to deal with this issue. Let the anti-abortion states become the "baby daddies."
Pass laws that will make these states responsible for pre-natal care, day care, health screenings, provide for early childhood development, school lunch program, and state-supported K-college education.
Since these lawmakers are so concerned with the "product of conception", they should go all the way and care for these products for at least the first 18 years of their lives.
So, no abortions with the state paying for the care, feeding, clothing, and education of these otherwise aborted fetuses. Maybe pay the sperm donors, too.
20
In your dreams. States do not care about what happens to the kids after they are born, especially if they're poor minority kids.
1
While all the talk about abortions has been about Roe vs Wade, these attacks on the right to privacy and right to choose have sneaked in the back door like a thief in the night to steel those rights state by state by state. Some have been thrown out by the courts but that takes time and clinics close and doctors move away. Congress has done nothing. Maybe they can’t but they haven't even tried. Be assured abortions will continue. For some, in local hospitals under the diagnosis of incomplete or missed miscarry. For others, a quick flight to a nearby country. Others will find themselves in back rooms or basements and instruments such as coat hangers used. A recent law was sighed to reduce maternal deaths. But nothing will stop those maternal deaths caused by illegal abortions. Congress should stop Trump at the poles less than two years from now instead of holding committee meeting and issuing threats. They need to start working for the people instead of their own political future. They may not succeed finding a way to stop these series of laws like Georgia's but they could at least try.
6
Oh, joy, DIY abortions, no medical expertise in attendance, no pre-screening, no support in case of complications! That sounds about as safe, painless , wise and popular a procedure as DIY circumcision or tonsillectomy. Most would exercise more caution than this process suggests for a beloved pet needing a medical procedure.
12
If only there was as much thought & care invested in what women should do after they become pregnant, as at the point some of these pregnancies occur. There’s anguish that goes with an unplanned pregnancy & often going through it alone. It’s not a trivial to most to “get rid of it” despite the rhetoric. There’s consideration of investment, emotional & financial into a human being not just for 18 years, but a lifetime. It’s so much more than just taking a pill, although that should absolutely be available. As should all other options remain on the table. I hope this brings more awareness to what women deal with, often in silence, and why choice(s) are so important.
7
1. In regards to “those of us who are more privileged can organize to reduce the potential harms,” I agree with this – and the author misses an important opportunity when referring to the National Network of Abortion Funds. Those of us who are privileged can look into her local abortion fund and actually volunteer to connect less privileged women with the funding needed to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. I recently attended the orientation in my city. Volunteer! Don’t just advocate.
2. There are major problems with misoprostol remaining a ‘prescription drug’:
a. Pharmacists are permitted to deny any woman a prescription due to ‘religious reasons’
b. Doctors can easily deny the request for misoprostol (see above reason)
c. The author urges us to share misoprostol with others. Sharing a prescription drug is illegal.
3. It is an interesting theory that “those of us with social privilege should consider openly carrying or displaying the medicine.” First, we need to normalize the sharing of our abortion experiences. One out of four women have abortions(!!!) – yet as don’t talk about it (due to stigma) society has no idea how common terminating a pregnancy actually is. I told a long-time friend about terminating my accidental pregnancy. Her response was that she did that as well. I may tell friends close to me – but usually only after they tell me they’ve terminated pregnancies as well. Society needs to permit us to talk openly about our experiences.
11
@HereNow -- Excellent post, and one thought: Society will never "permit" us to talk openly about our experiences, so we simply must DO so.
Rights for women, for black persons, for LGBTQ persons, and so on have come about because some brave individuals started talking/acting, and gradually they reduced stigma or at least reduced the obstacles.
In the case of abortion, the stigma isn't even *present* in many circs -- your friend didn't judge you, nor you her.
Thanks for your post.
3
@Doro Wynant, thank you for your thoughtful response. You have an excellent point that when people interact with 'others', stigma can be reduced. It's true my friends didn't judge me. I must mention that in my case I live in a liberal geographic area and my friends are non-religious liberals. I dare not tell my coworkers. And I'd prefer not tell my parents, as I don't want them to fret over having a medical procedure.
You have an excellent point that we must talk about our pregnancy terminations, without worrying about telling your truths.
I worry thought, that in the era of being 'doxed', telling a person who does judge, could be dangerous. True - women, black persons, and LGBTQ persons, earned their rights (at least partially). However, for them it is obvious when a person interacts with a woman or a black person, and in many cases an LGBTQ person. I worry that it's not as obvious that one terminated a pregnancy, and this lack of obviousness puts an undue pressure on us to tell our truth.
Much of the acceptance (by non-liberals) for the people you just mentioned, is due to personal interactions with them where they do not need to say anything - it's obvious.
The only real solution is to vote Democrat in every state and federal election, every two years. Politics is about policy, the rules under which we run our lives and our lives are run. It's much more than voting for President.
21
@Richard Schumacher : That's part of it. The other part is to volunteer with, and contribute to, legit groups that
---- fight current efforts in many states -- red states -- to enact new laws that make it harder for the poor to vote (eg, laws that require ID; laws that forbid people to vote if said ID varies from the voter rolls by so much as a hyphen -- TN is doing some awful stuff);
----- fight for best-practice voting, because hacked machines will deliver elections to the GOP;
---- fight for election days to be national holidays so people don't have to choose between voting and being fired for not showing up or for missing several hours (the current situation privileges GOPs, bc their voters tend to have jobs that provide PTO and flexible scheduling);
---- drive people w/o transportation to the polls on elections days;
---- back any other legit efforts to get the vote to as many persons as possible.
We need to understand that the GOP, knowing it's on the decline, is taking ever-more-desperate actions to keep the vote from those who would vote Dem if they made it to polls.
I think you said this, and I'm underscoring it: We need to stop skipping local elections, because stacked state houses = pro-GOP gerrymandering after the next census and also = lots of conservative judges whose rulings disproportionately harm the poor and under-educated.
3
Sounds good. Except for gerrymandering, voter suppression, miscounting, and a Supreme Court in the minorities pocket.
Oh and a military commanded by a narcisist cozy with Moscow. Even a pretence of democracy to the rescue is failing credibility.
@Richard Schumacher
And to not ever vote for even a Democrat who is Catholic or genuflector to any misogynist religion. That lets out vocally anti-abortion Biden, less vocal Castro, O'Rourke, Gillibrand, Ryan.
Too bad there are not any agnostic or atheist candidates in 2020. He/she would have my vote.
2
Hmmmm. What if waves of women left states like Georgia, to live where they aren't treated like a piece of property and a second class citizen?
In a world where some states have draconian abortion laws and others don't, woman might start making decisions about about where they choose to share their knowledge, skills, and taxes.
Employers looking to relocate or expand might choose go to states where they can attract people with skills, and that includes women.
Meanwhile, women who lack the means and mobility would be left to live in states devoid of opportunities for advancement.
Maybe this just a sad, dystopian story. Or maybe, in a country that prizes "market solutions" and "worker mobility" above all else, it foretells the future for states like Georgia.
11
@Taj And don't forget that male employees who might locate in states like Georgia have wives and daughters who will be impacted by anti-abortion laws. No corporation should locate there and the ones already there should pull out.
2
Women who were complacent about abortion rights are hopefully waking up. This struggle will never be over, it is controlled by men's evolutionarily determined drive to propagate their genes.
I applaud the author's approach. We must use all means necessary. Reach out to disadvantaged women is essential. I had three illegal abortions when they were illegal everywhere. I was very lucky. I'm white lower middle class. All means of birth control and abortion must be vigorously pursued.
6
@Audaz : I quibble with one sentence:
1. Women are just as evolutionarily driven as men to send their genes into the next generation.
2. That drive doesn't prompt men in other developed nations to write laws that shackle women and deprive them of bodily autonomy -- this is societal, not hard-wired, and you're potentially doing a lot of harm by suggesting that it's the latter.
3. That drive doesn't prevent women and men from all social classes from abusing their own children -- the carriers of the genes that they theoretically want to flourish.
In short, please avoid assigning biological, and presumably immutable, motives to anything; such thinking has been used for centuries to keep women from having autonomy, let along power.
2
I disagree with the author's statement, "Imagine if those old coat hanger pins warning against unsafe abortion were replaced by pins with pills on them to show that we have access to this medicine and can help others?'. On the contrary we need to put the pins down and protest with actual coat hangers. Let's visit every clinic with protestors, let's walk on the National Mall during the 'march for life.' Let's do it all holding our metal coat hangers high and chanting. Imagine with all the brainwashed Catholic school children at 'march for life' saw us with those coat hangers. It might actually influence their thoughts and their decisions when adults.
7
I’d like to be the first to welcome Georgia to the 14thc.
11
@TrumTheTrsitor Ironically, abortion was legal in the middle ages, and was pretty much everywhere in the western world (and in the united States) until the 1870s and 1880s, when concerns about women in general stepping out of their place, and white women in particular not having enough babies, created a wave of anti-abortion and anti-contraception legislation in the U.S.
5
To Practical thoughts. I wish I could like your comment 100 times.
Medication assisted termination of early pregnancy is currently the norm in many countries. For example, in France, over 90% of terminations are accomplished via medication. Ireland's 2018 law stipulates pregnancy under 10 weeks length will be terminated by G.P.s (i.e. family doctors) by medication. Why and how has the U.S. hung onto the surgical approach? I specifically address the pro-choice influencers and providers, why?
What is required to move 90% of all American terminations to medication? Why not handle this issue just as other advanced, enlighted nations do? Why undertake surgery when four tablets that cost $6.00 total will accomplish the result?
Medical abortion in America should be in the hands of the tens of thousands of family practice doctors, as well as ObGyns, in their regular offices. You cannot picket tens and hundreds of thousands of doctors. This is what the pro-conceptionists fear and have always feared.
Why not call their bluff? Why? Why feed into the pro-conceptionists' narrative? Let's write our own stories. Let's live our own truths. Forswear the bunkum about "heartbeats" at six weeks' gestation. Proceed from scientific postulates.
Misoprostol is readily available online without prescription. This is a fact. Let's act on facts.
13
If only the GOP and conservatives were as eager to protect the lives of people AFTER they were born... protect them from AR-15, toxic fumes, opioid addiction, climate change, and the list goes on. By all means force your beliefs on everyone else but when someone gets sued because they don't want to make a wedding cake for a same sex couple, religious freedom is under attack. Give me a break.
59
@Raul Campos - Contraception fails, often. A condom has an 18% failure rate, which amounts to about one unintended pregnancy a year. Oral contraceptives technically have a 2% failure rate, BUT if a woman takes certain antibiotics or other meds, or has the flu, her contraception fails for the entire month. Doctors don't tell women that.
And birth control pills must be taken every day, without fail, and roughly at the same time of day. For a woman never to have an unintended pregnancy, her contraceptive must work 100% perfectly every single month for the 35 years of her reproductive life. That's why 50% of US pregnancies are unplanned, and why 1/3 of American women have an abortion by age e45.
12
@Raul CamposThe proper medical term is either embryo or fetus, depending on how far along the pregnancy is; there is no baby or child before labor is completed. Mrs. David
11
@Raul Campos A fetus is not a child or a baby. It is inextricably part of a woman's body, and only she has the right to decide what happens to her body,
1
While misoprostol can save women from unwanted pregnancies, the article reminds me of people building fallout shelters during the cold war: advocacy can be a defeatist action.
1
What a shame! Is this the most advanced country on earth?
"...the future of abortion in the United States will most likely include formal or de facto abortion bans that will result in forced pregnancies, unsafe abortions and the prosecution of miscarriages. "
People, get real! This is ridiculous if it were not so sad! We live in the 21st century, but our society turns back to the Middle Ages.
It's worse than in a former communist country that banned abortions up to the 4th child in a family, although most middle-income families could not afford to care for and educate four children while both parents were working full-time jobs and living in a small "block house" apartment. The consequence? Mothers were dying of kidney disease after the intake of "miracle herbs" or of infection after unsafe procedures, many were overpaying for unnecessary cesarian sections (that allowed women to terminate pregnancies after their second child). The only image visible to the "West" was the large number of children left out in the streets, but not so much was discussed about the conditions that led to that situation.
Women do not end pregnancies if they have the minimum confidence that they can raise the child and care for him/or her. I'd ask the self-proclaimed pro-life crowd: how many in your community are eager to care for an abandoned child or adopt an unwanted baby?
Wouldn't you rather build communities of people blooming under their mother's (and father's) love?
30
Young people will not put up w restrictions on abortion like this state is proposing. I'm guessing that it will contribute to the end of the GOP as we know it. Refusal to pass reasonable gun control and messing w womens rights will be the end of them.
40
@Fran T - Have you looked at the young female protesters carrying signs saying, "We are the pro-life generation"? Scary.
1
It's time for a new kind of "heartbeat" law. This one should say, "as long as a woman has a heartbeat, then she and only she has the right to make decisions about her body."
95
@Raul Campos
Those two bodies are not equal in any measure.
One body belongs to a fully functioning adult, with a brain, a life experience and autonomy over herself. The other body is in the earliest stages of development and is completely dependent of the first.
If I were to find out that my only means to live was for you to syphon off your blood to me, would you allow the state to force you? Sound ridiculous, but it's not. The host body is the body in charge. There is no more primitive need than the one for autonomy over one's body.
Lastly, pragmatically, this is slippery slope. How are doctors going to differentiate between a miscarriage and an abortion. What will happen, to Raul's daughter, as an example, if she goes looking for an abortion day 30 and day 31 she spontaneously miscarries. All it would take is one zealous doctor to bring criminal charges. This is ALREADY happening so it's not far fetched.
Further, what about women whose children are not viable? Or children (as is the case in Ohio) who are raped? Do you think that the unborn child of that 11-year old in Ohio has rights that supersede the girl herself?
Nature entrusted us with this function. You men need to undestand that it's our bodies, our choice. When you can carry a child inside your stomach for nine months, deal with the extreme number of physical and emotional repercussions, come talk to me.
Until then, hands off my uterus.
4
@Raul Campos. Does anyone really think that any woman confronted with the choice to continue or not a pregnancy hasn't acknowledged that?
3
I know people (poorly educated in science) who genuinely believe that having an abortion is killing a baby. For these people, the term “self-induced abortion” means that the woman is killing a baby. Thus, it won’t be acceptable.
I believe that others, who don’t really care about abortion as a moral issue, actually care very much about it as a control issue. They use “abortion” as a cover because their true desire is for the return to power of men - in the political and working worlds. And what better way to accomplish that than to have women pregnant and unable to control their bodies? For these people, once abortion is locked down, birth control is next.
38
Yes...but...it means a woman really, really must prepare herself against the possibility of an unwanted pregnancy either thru birth control or voluntary sterilization. Think about that. Making a young woman choose between a life on her own...or being bound in a relationship. My guess is that she’ll get a dog...
3
In this and the other article, the Yuzpe regimen is not mentioned. Being a younger doc who has never lived in an area where reproductive choice was illegal, I had never heard of it. However, I recently was doing some CME for myself and this came up. Yuzpe is most effective when used within 72 hours of unprotected sex.
Yuzpe uses existing oral contraceptive medications and may be more accessible in an emergency as most women probably know other women who have BCPs even if they themselves don't have them. It may also be easier for women to ask for a BCP prescription in a hostile areal. The drawback to Yuzpe is the higher risk of temporary nausea and vomiting.
https://www.bedsider.org/features/88-the-yuzpe-method-effective-emergency-contraception-dating-back-to-the-70s
17
All the new GA laws and all of the successful attempts at restricting abortions at the State by demanding ultrasounds and counseling prove is a SC decision can easily be ignored if the Party in power disagrees with the decision.
In Roe v Wade, the court ruled that a woman seeking an abortion was entitled to their constitutional due process rights against government actions that threaten the denial of life, liberty, or property, and all of the above cited actions by the States fail to meet the SC criteria for granting a woman the right to Due Process.
The point is a standing decision by the SC is not, as most believe, binding on the 50 States, as the egregious State actions on the Rights of Woman seeking an abortion clearly demonstrates.
2
I am at least a third generation Georgian. Georgia is home. My homeplace, built by my grandfather, still stands, owned and occupied by good friends of mine, in the middle of the farm he and my father created and worked all their lives. It's a wonderful feeling to live where your family is known to many you encounter on a daily basis. There is much I love about Southern culture. But if Roe v. Wade falls and the law the Georgia legislature just passed becomes law, I will leave Georgia and move to a state where women are respected. Nobody may care that I leave, but my daughter and son will know where I stand.
56
I am in the early phase of deciding where to head next once the children have all flown the nest, and this is my #1 deal breaker. As attractive as some states are for retirees, I know there is a chance one of my kids might want to follow, and so I will not move to a place that would subject my children or future grandchildren to such a horrible future.
2
Yes, yes, yes. A thousand times, yes.
New York State, where I'm from, needs to make over the counter sale of misoprostol and mifepristone legal, so that women in Louisiana and Georgia can have easy and reliable access to these drugs.
And yes, Louisianans have tried to stop this. But here, Democrats who can win election outside New Orleans are anti-choice, and sponsor anti-abortion legislation.
16
I may be wrong, but I’ve always thought that if a baby from an unwanted pregnancy was immediately turned over to the father, if it was the father who had to drop out of school or otherwise has his or his family disrupted, that there would be a way for the pregnancy terminated in a safe way.
49
Boycott the States that pass such laws.
Boycott products made from companies that support such legislation.
39
@EnoughAlready
I will avoid peaches and peanuts from there.
Boycott the State of Georgia. No vacations in Savannah or elsewhere in the state for me and my friends this year. Hollywood has decided not to do movies in Georgia due to their terrible laws. Other corporations should step up and do the same.
39
@Jacquie
I chose onions grown in Washington over onions grown in Georgia this morning, with considerable satisfaction.
2
I have several things to say about this matter.
As a physician assistant who has practiced obstetrics and gynecology for 27 years, it sickens me to see lawmakers chop away at women's reproductive rights, including the right to obtain contraception that is primarily paid for by one's insurance. Yet of course private insurance still pays for drugs to treat erectile dysfunction. It is a disgrace. It is tragic. It is evil and stupid.
There is now legislation in Ohio that permits insurance companies to provide payment for transfer of an ectopic pregnancy to the uterus. There is no such procedure. One cannot transfer an ectopic without detaching and reimplanting the placenta, and one cannot do that either. This legislation was introduced by an Ohio representative who is an accountant. Not medicine and certainly not obstetrics and gynecology. But since he is a man, I guess it doesn't matter.
And then we have the law in Alabama that would permit women charging men with sexual assault to be charged with false accusation in the event that the man is found not guilty. Despite what Trump thinks, not guilty does not equal innocent. 97% of sexual assailants will never spend a night in jail.
These men are the ones who impregnate women and then they act like women are whores for getting pregnant. I'd like to know how many of the pious male lawmakers have paid for abortions after knocking up women to whom they aren't married.
Where did my country go?
66
This legislation is more about gaining power over women than saving lives, let’s be honest. If this had anything to do with “life” or helping women, there wouldn’t be provisions to punish women with fines they can never pay or procedures that don’t exist.
The government /GOP is seeking to force women to bare children without their consent. It’s not constitutional. If they choose to forge this path, then the state must bare the cost of raising these children. But they won’t, because that’s not what the goal is. The goal is simply oppression and it will stop at paying for healthy children, I guarantee you.
11
@Elizabeth Salzer, that's interesting that Ohio has a law about transplanting ectopic pregnancies to the uterus. That's part of the new Georgia law too. One Georgia lawmaker said that if the embryo in the fallopian tube is implanted in the uterus, the doctor won't be charged with murder. (Presumably he would be if he didn't perform this impossible procedure.)
Apparently this fiction about salvaging ectopic pregnancies is gaining traction in the anti-abortion movement. This is going to result in some deaths.
15
@Elizabeth Salzer - The KS legislature just introduced a bill requiring doctors to tell women a medication abortion can be reversed if she takes progesterone. The AMA and the ACOG say there's no proof of that whatsoever, and no proof it wouldn't be highly dangerous.
The KS legislature is also working on a constitutional amendment to ban abortion in the state. They want to put it on the ballot in 2020, apparently thinking they're going to get the 2/3 vote to pass it. I'm betting they're wrong.
6
Once upon a time the GOP was the pro-choice party—part of its belief the government should have the smallest possible footprint on Americans’ lives. But then in the early 70s, fearing the party did not have a sufficient coalition to win the presidency, its leaders reversed course, not because of any change in their “small government” philosophy, but purely as a purely political ploy, to entice Catholics to defect from the Democratic fold.
Now the party is in the bizarre position of advocating, on the one hand, virtual total freedom from taxes, regulation and anything else that stands between Republicans and their money and, on the other, government control and intervention in the most personal, private and intimate parts of Americans’ lives, from contraception to abortion to imposition of Christian thought and religiosity. And even more bizarrely they embrace these antithetical views of the proper role of government all in the name of “freedom.”
It is hard to see the “freedom” in any law that keeps women “barefoot and pregnant,” and thus, as the Evangelicals claim the Bible commands, subjected to the men in their lives. It is even harder not to view cynically the GOP’s planned argument, when this law is tested in the Supreme Court, urging that abortion is a matter of states’ rights—an outcome that would, of course, preserve their freedom to rid their own lives of unwanted pregnancies with abortion access in the blue states.
62
Here is an argument that is lost on (or ignored by) the Conservative Christian Right: if you want to reduce abortions and unwanted pregnancies do just two things for starters:
Make free birth control and sex education a priority in our schools so the physical process of initiating a pregnancy will be greatly reduced.
Make the our world a more welcoming place for mothers and their new infants by providing medicare for all, free and nurturing childcare, a living wage for all workers and subsidized no-shame, safe housing for single parents of either sex.
These steps wouldn't eliminate a woman's right to choice but at last it would alleviate a big chunk of the situations that lead to the unwanted pregnancy, along with economic fear that accompanies giving birth in this economically lopsided country of ours.
These two solutions should be a starting point for all serious discussions but instead it gives way to interpretations of holy works written thousands of years ago, none authored by women... Religious guides that rest on guilt, suffering, patriarchal control and punishment.
Judicial conservatives are being nominated daily by Trump and they will compound the work of state governments like Georgia who now dictate public laws from church pulpits...
36
@Bill Cullen, Author Pregnancy carries significant medical risks, including the risk of death. Child care is extremely time consuming and the amount of time spent can eliminate a woman's options for higher education and a career that pays more than minimum wage. Not all reasons for wanting an abortion are economic.
12
@Frances Grimble Nor did I state that "all reasons for wanting an abortion are economic" but I did say that they were ignored by Conservative Republicans and that it is one starting point and definitely a part of some women's decisions. From the NY Times' Bryce Covert April 25, 2017, Why Abortion Is a Progressive Economic Issue: "Economics frequently drive women to seek an abortion in the first place. Unintended pregnancies have become increasingly concentrated among low-income women, who by 2011 were more than five times as likely to experience one as those with greater means. Among women getting an abortion, a 2004 survey found, the most frequently cited reasons were that a new child would interfere with education or work or that women couldn’t afford to have a baby at that time. Abortion rates rose during the recent recession, particularly among low-income women, as they and their partners lost jobs and income.
6
Most demonstrators and activists are women, but until men step up and take responsibility for their half of the pregnancy, the situation will not improve. Our legislatures are mainly male; they need to see their citizen counterparts on the ramparts. The balance is 60/40 female/male regarding the decision to abort, because the woman is the one who would be taking the risks of pregnancy, but men have a large say in abortion. If one in three women have had one, so have one in three men. Speak up, guys!
14
@annabellina - If the men take their responsibility they should also be allowed to "abort" any unwanted pregnancy just like the woman does.
Women below are talking about having an abortion because an unwanted pregnancy would have interfered with school or work. But you would expect the man to be stuck with the child.
1
@tom harrison Nope. The woman take all of the risks of pregnancy (except, sometimes, the financial ones), so they get the last word. Courts have established that. A man, however, has serious responsibility regarding an unwanted pregnancy. The balance of this needs to be worked out, but at the moment one would think that the women got pregnant all by themselves.
6
@tom harrison - 2-3 women die a day in childbirth in the US, and hundreds and even thousands a day suffer complications that leave them with lifelong health problems or disabilities. The US ranks down among developing countries for maternal and infant deaths. And that doesn't even count losing out on educational opportunities or losing a job.
8
This only addresses early pregnancy as the author admits. The reality is that there is a place later in pregnancy where the D&C type of abortion has to be done. However, even in the case of earlier pregnancy 8-10 weeks gestation, the anti-abortion folks would decry the use because of a fetal heartbeat. This is not an answer to ending a pregnancy after 8 weeks.
5
If we, the remaining sane and educated (degrees do not matter) American people do not like such medieval self-inflicting wound on American society as a whole and our women in particular, we must stand up against religious fundamentalism ((mainly Christian fundamentalism) which is growing for last few decades in the country, encouraged by a section of politician and political parties. Our STEM education is also being increasingly polluted by that. It is having a devastating impact on our ability to create wealth and denting our global industrial competitiveness besides destroying the very core of our secular democracy and the society.
18
Thank you for this informative op ed.
I,for one, am sick and tired of the virtue signalling of the so-called "pro-lifers." They don't care about your fetuses and they don't care about women--except to prevent them from controlling the means of reproduction. Until these people spend as much time advocating for live children, and live women, as they do for the fetus, their protestations about the sanctity of human life should be considered just another form of jingoism.
35
Safe is a relative thing.
Some forms of abortion are safer than others.
None are safer than effective birth control.
No birth control is perfect of course, so it will never be either/or.
Early is always safer than later. All of the limits are designed to slow things down, with the goal of halting them, but the effect of making them less safe if done. It is an assault on safety, in practice, rather than a real prevention of abortion. It should be seen for what it is, not for what is intended but not achieved.
4
If Roe is overturned, yes getting an abortion will become more difficult but there will still be abortions for 3 reasons:
1. Every ObGyn physician uses dilatation and curatage (D&C) to diagnose vaginal bleeding, and this procedure ends pregnancies that may be causing the bleeding. This procedure also helps diagnose tumors, infections, ectopic pregnancies, and a host of other abnormalities. A handful of states have tried to ban D&Cs but that would be like telling a cardiologist that he/she cannot listen to a patient's heart with a stethoscope as it's vital for ObGyns to to their jobs.
2. Telemedicine - most physicians are now employed by groups, e.g. HMOs, clinics, hospitals. Many of these organizations are in multistate chains. So a woman in an antiabortion state can make an appt. via telemedicine with providers in abortion friendly states, be diagnosed, and have the miso shipped to her home from that state.
3. Travel - van/bus services will pop up in anti abortion states to take pregnant women to pro abortion states for a fee to include round trip and a couple nights in a hotel near the abortion provider. That's in addition to using good old cars, trains, and airplanes to travel to Canada, Mexico, California, and other abortion friendly places for those who can afford it.
So abortion will not be stopped by an American ban on abortion despite neoconservative rhetoric. As a matter of fact, many female relatives/friends of Republican politicians already use these 3 options.
18
@c-c-g: Your second idea as stated would be illegal in about half of the states. For example, a doctor in NY (even one in a "multistate chain") cannot legally send miso to a patient in Texas for abortion because Texas outlaws telemedicine abortions.
However, a woman in Texas could easily order miso on line from India without involving any US doctor. That's illegal too according to US law, but it's not clear who would be prosecuted for it - the US cops can't arrest the shipper in India, and presumably the Indian cops wouldn't would either.
4
@c-c-g - Another option is just to leave an oppressive place and live somewhere more agreeable. I did that 40 years ago.
18
@c-c-g Abortion have never been stopped by any law. Your ideas are not wrong and I am glad you listed them but the main issue is they are available primarily to people of means and may not help those who are most vulnerable: the young, the poor, people of color.
(Also, for #2, there are regulations against docs prescribing across state lines in some situations. The pharmacy used may also be a barrier.)
My mother grew up in 1960s-1970s SE Asia where abortion was illegal, doctors would not honor the request of women who were married and already had children to have their tubes tied, and birth control pills were not common. But she and her girlfriends were able to get these things done. How? They were educated, connected, well-off: they'd buy OCPs on the black market, paid docs extra for procedures, and in the most trying circumstances, travelled abroad. This is the same story all around the world.
My mom told me these stories in my 20s which is why despite never having faced personal reproductive crises, I have always been pro-choice.
1
One way to deal with this outrage against these laws passed in Georgia and other States is an economic boycott . Tourism, doing business, Film production , the Music industry and Retail companies. Another tactic is Women taking legal action against the States for denial of they’re right to choose under Roe vs Wade. Deplorable!
24
I've always wanted to travel to the Deep South (live outside US). Georgia's law has thrown cold water on that idea. Political diversity is one thing, but why would I want to support a state that advocates the controlling of woman? As a woman, why would I choose to go there?
5
@Robert Smith I certainly don't think any corporations should set up businesses in these states, nor should women go to college in these states.
6
@Robert Smith - lol, I have boycotted the south my entire life. I'm gay and wouldn't spend a moment there.
I suspect the anti-abortionists are going to eventually prevail in the courts. Why not start working now to get women's rights referendums on the ballots in all 50 states?
22
A somewhat strange column. As if Georgia had just banned education for girls and women and the author was saying what we need to do is make course work available online and make it easier to buy textbooks out of state and for the girls to study under the covers by flashlight. What we have here is illegal and continuing attempts at outlaw infringement of basic human rights for women and we need to act in accordance with that. Turn up the decibels, turn up the heat, leverage economic power, initiate, and sustain as long as necessary, legal action, and support and encourage voting. Accommodation of the benighted and barbaric is not an option, let's make that clear up front.
19
Check the statistics on Georgia domestic violence. The
Georgia anti-abortion law is not about medical treatment, nor even about abortion. It is all about men doing stuff to women - sex and pregnancy is just the medium.
25
We also need to fight the "freedom of religion" laws that allowed a Michigan pharmacist to get away with denying misoprostol to a customer, risking her health,and resulting in her having to drive three hours to another pharmacy (not something poor women will be able to do).
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/18/us/catholic-pharmacist-miscarriage.html
"The woman...became pregnant earlier this year, but an ultrasound at the end of June revealed that the fetus no longer had a heartbeat...Her doctor prescribed her misoprostol, a drug that would make the miscarriage process happen faster and could help her avoid an invasive surgical procedure."
283
That happened right here in West Michigan. I heard an update recently that the case was finally settled and the pharmacist in question no longer works for Meijer stores. I believe Meijer also made some adjustments to its policies, so something like that will hopefully never happen again.
37
@A Bird In The Hand Hope is not a strategy. Vote for choice, and boycott businesses that don't, at a minimum, allow another employee to fill such an order.
28
@Steve
She stated she drove back home.
She could have had the prescription filled
before she drove to see relatives some 3 hours away.
I doubt there was no other pharmacy within three hours.
I would imagine that most people, poor or not, live
within an hour of a pharmacy.
2
I don't have the words to express how surreal it is to read this - in the year 2019.
492
@Deb You're right, Deb. I am thinking of "The Handmaid's Tale" as I read this article. It's scary times in the US now. I'll be 70 next year and hope I live to see more open-minded politicians and judges again in my life-time.
56
@Liz K
At 55, I keep hoping we’ll see the pendulum swing that’s been seen throughout history. I didn’t realize for decades that I was actually born at the end of the last liberal swing. I had believed the Boomer teens and young adults ruling the culture of my early childhood that they were going to make sure the future was going to be all about peace, love, and racial and gender equality. Great job, Boomers.
Using 1980 as the starting point of the conservative swing and looking at how thoroughly secular and multicultural the prevailing culture is now, it seems that 40 years should be plenty of time for this nasty strain of religious conservative backlash to run its course. More and more Americans are openly atheistic, most don’t even bother with church or religion. How is it that these Neanderthals still hold such power?
I keep thinking their hold is about to break, then Georgia happens. How did a state so close to electing Stacy Abrams also produce such a misogynistic law? When will the pendulum finally return to the place it was in the 60s and 70s? I can’t imagine that the prevailing secular culture will truly remain so disenfranchised from its political power for even more decades to come.
54
@left coast finch
There was no "swing" or pendulum. Voters were opposed to abortion in 1973; that's why the Supreme Court removed it from democratic control. Voters have opposed abortion ever since, but had to get around the roadblocks that the abortion industry kept putting in their way. The only thing that happened in 1980 was that politicians starting cashing in on opposition to abortion.
2
The word “women" does not appear in this piece until several paragraphs in; the word "people" is used. It is young girls and women who menstruate and can get pregnant via male insemination. (Thomas Beatie, who gave birth to three children, was born a woman and kept his female reproductive organs when he transitioned to male gender, but that is a very rare case.) That women's health issues remain largely presided over by male politicians (who often behave hypocritically when women with whom they are involved become pregnant), and are not given the same respect/freedom/weight as those of men, still astonishes. Women still die in childbirth in the U.S. (women of color do so at even higher rates.) Ms. Sietstra states that ‘A return to illegal abortion will not look like a return to the era of coat hangers,” but how can she be so sure? Women, especially those who are impoverished and don’t have a support network, will likely be desperate if pregnancy is unwanted and safe abortions are rendered illegal; they may self-harm if necessary. Birth control, even carefully taken/used, can fail. Too many politicians enact laws which make it very difficult for women to afford/obtain birth control. What about girls and women who are raped, and/or are victims of incest? Society fails to nurture/protect children after they are born. Poverty, gun violence, lack of quality health care and education condemn countless children to bleak lives. Women must have agency re their own bodies and health.
37
Morning after pill, "miso"--there is really no reason for an abortion debate. Isolate the fringe radicals who believe that every fertilization should result in a birth so-help-me-God.
Accessible for everyone, legal--birth control, morning-after, miso--and add a huge communications outreach campaign. In US and abroad. Normalize globally.
This is so clearly the solution to the rancorous, deadly pro-Life vs. Choice debate. The solution to unwanted pregnancies and dangerous abortions for the victims, the poor and unaware. The solution for conservatives who may be comfortable with restricting access but who turn away from paying for health services, education, policing and all of the attendant costs associated with incremental, unwanted births to poor mothers.
So who is it that wants to fight over abortion and abortion prevention? Who wins from an underclass of stressed parents, sickly, poorly educated children who will grow to underpaid laborers --an underclass bringing huge social costs that will be ignored until they can no longer be ignored? The source of a debilitating national divisiveness. So except for a pro-Life fringe who benefits? This is a win:win for everyone.
So what will it take to move towards a nationwide, universal solution? Let's do it!...
9
@Chris P, misoprostol is not the morning after pill. The author is talking about ending a pregnancy early, not prophylactic measures. She makes good points, but I think you're being too optimistic is you think the anti-abortion crowd won't go after misoprostol. They do want to fight about abortion for their own reasons, and they'll never give up, regardless of the cost to society in social services. This isn't about corporate exploitation, although it's an effective wedge issue for the GOP.
2
How do these laws propose to monitor all medical care given to women, and pry into individual medical records? Does the state have the right to all such personal information? If a women visits the gynecologist for any reason, will the state be prying into all records to see if an bortion was discussed or carried out? This marks a new and extremely intensive intrusion into what used to be considered the personal realm.
43
@Bonnie. Indeed. How is Georgia law enforcement going to determine whether or not a woman is telling the truth about the date of her last menstrual period?
10
@ElleninCA
That's the catch 22.
It can be difficult to tell if one is pregnant after only six weeks.
So if a woman goes for an abortion, it will be assumed that she must have been pregnant for more than six weeks and is therefore breaking the law.
The law is a form of entrapment.
12
@Bonnie
Yes, women's records will be reviewed by the government. This actually happened in Romania when abortion and birth control were outlawed.
7
What makes the author think that the patriarchs (including their women) will stop with outlawing clinical abortions? I think it's time pro-choice women should take the advice of the patriarchs: "If you don't want to bear a child, don't have sex." That also means, in practice, not drinking alcohol or using drugs in mixed company since both reduce clear thinking and self-control, avoiding men you feel a sexual attraction to, and of course, not entering a man's domicile unaccompanied or inviting him into yours. In short, end the Sexual Revolution. For married women, no coupling without double protection. Husbands should share the emotional and physical burden of contraception and family planning. It's not much fun and most methods pose health hazards to women.
10
I don’t entirely disagree with you. Unfortunately, women still have to take safety measures that men don’t and men should share birth control responsibility. However, there were unwanted pregnancies before the sexual revolution. Marital rape does happen. And girls and women are raped even when they are sober and in the supposed safety of their or a relative’s home.
1
@abigail49. Wow. Here we go, blaming the victim. However, you forgot to include women dressing "modestly" so as to not arouse men's sexual desires [sarcasm].
The Georgia bill has a punitive measure within it that criminalizes out of state abortion by residents with up to ten years.
I find all this legislation abhorrent, but this is a level of vindictive dogmatism that put a stake in the heart of the states rights argument put forward over the years. Even in this dystopic time, and with this Court, I believe it would be shot down under equal protection provisions, but observers should note that there is no civic logic or principle behind this legislation, only zealotry.
39
@Theodore
I'm not sure such a law can be legal.
You can't be prosecuted in one state for breaking the law in another state.
5
@Jerry Engelbach, I think the Georgia law gets around this problem by punishing the out-of-state abortions with "conspiracy to commit murder" rather than first-degree murder. Their reasoning is that the planning for the abortion occurred in Georgia. That's why the out-of-state abortion is 10 years rather than life in prison or capital punishment, the punishment for first-degree murder.
3
@Jerry Engelbach
Yes, 14th Amendment equal protection clauses would prohibit this law from going into effect (assuming any decency remains in the SCOTUS). However, merely passing the legislation shows the bankrupt character of the advocates.
Either they are cynically arguing for states rights while truly pushing a Christian Dominionist agenda, or they truly believe in states rights and are cynically virtue signalling. Either way, it undercuts any principled stance they espouse.
3
The latest poll, taken last summer by the Kaiser foundation, found that 67% of Americans support choice, while only 29% favor overturning Roe v. Wade. The fact that states continue to chip away at this right is a prime example, along with common sense gun laws (supported by over 80% of the public), of how democracy has been warped beyond all recognition by Republican intransigence, gerrymandering and the corrupting power of money. When the government consistently fails to deliver what the people want, it's time for deep structural reforms to restore real American democracy and make sure that it can never be compromised again.
Republicans often complain about the "nanny state," by which they mean a nation that coddles freeloaders with safety nets and protective regulations. But they are largely blind to their own version: the "Daddy state," in which a white patriarchal minority imposes its sexist, racist and corporatist agenda upon citizens who have long since rejected it, and will not abide being thwarted for much longer.
88
This is a great idea, but it needs to go a bit further for Americans. For example, the biggest driver of abortion is the expense of birth control options for low income women. Sure, birth control fails, but more often it is the expense. For low income women even $25 a month is too much. We must make birth control free for all women, even the more expensive varieties like implanted IUDs.
Abortion should be rare. It is an invasive procedure, even the pill form. Abortion can be made rare, but it can't be gotten rid of entirely. It is simply not possible.
So the pill form is the next best option, but even then it must be taken early in pregnancy. The pill abortion does not help women who encounter complications later in their pregnancies. What happens then?
11
@DB Actually, IUDs are the most cost-effective birth control measure for women, even more than tubal ligation. Yes, I was surprised to learn this too.
Even though the up-front expenses of insertion and device are higher, they last longer (at least 5, up to 10 years per insertion), have less side effects compared to pills (esp. newer IUDs), and are more effective. For the latter, they are more effective to begin with but that effectiveness is boosted by the fact that with pills, patches, creams, etc. many women forget to take them, change them, etc. in time. Once the IUD is inserted, they don't have to do anything until they are ready to take it out.
6
@DB Of course, the Affordable Care Act aims to make birth control free. But Republicans are determined to turn their backs on enlightened public policy.
1
@DB
I think the Affordable Care Act made birth control free with the stipulation that you are enrolled in a health insurance plan. This covers IUD's too. Helpful/not helpful.
If we accept the fact that we are an integral part of the Animal Kingdom and that as such an infant for as long as its behavior is totally based on satisfying its animal instincts it is in essence no different than any other animal and thus abortion would be much easier to accept when the circumstances warrant it.
Also considering that a fetus is a part of its mother’s
physical existence, then she should be the ultimate decision maker regarding abortion hopefully after careful consideration such as consulting others.
9
MISO Can be primarily used for the prevention of stomach ulcers. Hence, since unwanted pregnancies cause signficant levels of stress and can result in stomach ulcers, it's logical to provide pregnant women with medication that can help present stomach ulcers. Especially since so many women experience morning sickness and digestive distress, providing a medication that could relieve such severe symptoms is both logical and legal.
9
@John Jones : The state the state of GA is going to be on the lookout for an increase n the number of Rx for miso; doctors aren't going to risk prosecution.
Everything about this bill is sick, hateful, hate-filled, and enraging.
Since anti-abortion activists and legislators don't put the same energy into making sure that every woman has affordable access to effective birth control, it's clear this is about control of women's bodies. Because the best way to prevent an abortion is to prevent a pregnancy.
42
@Elizabeth A Its not only that, for the most part they actively oppose access to contraception.
1
The bizarrely extreme GA law would cost the voters of GA more to enforce than GA's entire state budget. First they will need a registry of every fertile female in the state, monthly mandatory pregnancy tests for every woman on the registry, mandatory monitoring to ensure that no woman ends her own pregnancy by pill or other means, roadblocks on every road leading out of GA to ensure no woman leaves the state while pregnant, and special screening rooms at ATL and every airport. They will have to have state monitors in every clinic, doctor's office, and hospital to ensure no one colluded to commit a secret " murder," not to mention a whole new anti abortion enforcement police division, prosecutors, and courts to handle the cases. And those are just the direct costs. Add to those the job losses of employers leaving the state, loss of tourism, fewer out of state college students, and lost productivity as women leave the state in droves. Will a majority of GA residents be willing to see this economic impact on their state?
24
@Susan
Georgia won't have to spend a penny.
The effect of the law will be to chill doctors into self-censorship.
They will refuse to give abortions at all, to avoid the possibility that the woman is past the six-week mark.
Throw in one or two prosecutions as examples, and abortion will be effectively outlawed in Georgia, achieving the GOP's goal of humiliating and enslaving women.
11
@Jerry Engelbach How will the state be able to prove the woman was past the six week mark, AFTER the abortion is completed? Unless, as I suggest above, the state has a registry and record of every menstrual period and pregnancy test of every woman, and a watcher in every doctor's office to testify that an abortion was even performed? A charge of murder puts a heavy burden of proof on the state, including intent, and a jury trial, to boot.
And there's no way of preventing self induced (Miso) abortions without those carefully documented records, either.
3
@Susan. You forgot to install a system for monitoring the dates of women’s menstrual periods.
The developments in Georgia, Alabama and Ohio...(ugh) raise some very interesting questions. The first is who or what organization exactly is behind all of this? We know that ALEC is responsible for much of the right wing legislation in statehouses around the country, but who exactly is making all of this happen? And next, I am wondering what is going to happen in Georgia, in particular, where Atlanta is becoming increasingly diverse and liberal, and is headquarters for an impressive roster of national and multinational companies, not to mention a robust film and music production industry. What happens when the affluent young professionals of Atlanta find themselves up against laws like this? Right now I think they are probably in a state of horrified denial (like the liberal and highly educated Jews of pre-war Germany), but surely some kind of response is going to set in eventually. And then what??
20
@Another Teacher. Here in Ohio evangelical or extremist Catholic Republican zealots, mostly white males and usually from rural areas, control the state house. There is a stark urban/rural divide on most issues, with the cities currently having little say.
1
Laws like these are at heart economic tyranny. Well to do women and their daughters and friends will be unaffected and will do whatever they wish to. Only the poor and the uneducated will be hurt. This is not remotely about "pro life."
19
It's been clear to me that there's increasing conservative backlash against female bodily autonomy. The result is a coercive system in which all the burden will fall on women, forcing us back into a situation of servitude in child bearing and rearing. To borrow the preferred language of the right, this creates a perverse incentive for men to be careless reproductively, as the burden will not fall on them and in reality it reduces their competition in the work place. If this is to fall on women, then we need equal laws to coerce economic support for the woman who has become enslaved to the fetus, therefore the man and the state. If women are to be legally coerced to provide physical support, then we need side by side, equal, strident pushes for laws to coerce male economic support . That's the only way I can see to level the cost and perhaps encourage conservatives to let women be human again.
318
@Jylene Livengood: Hit and run daddies and the adoption racket are the principle constituencies of these laws.
43
@Jylene Livengood Nope. Economic penalties are not enough for imposing life-altering, unwanted burdens on women. Men who share equally in creating unwanted fetuses should share equally in unwanted, life-altering medical consequences as well as economic ones. Sterilize them.
129
@Jylene Livengood
Interesting. I had not before considered that a latent reason behind conservative attempts to control women's reproductive freedom was to reduce job/economic competition from said women by keeping them out of the job and career spheres more often, though it could be argued that nowadays even women who give birth voluntarily often cannot take any leave they might have and go right back into the workforce.
Still, I could see how in aggregate it might reduce economic competition for men.
And, if there is any truth to this, is the continued, even increasing, conservative ferocity for this a reaction to continued economic displacement by outsourcing and technology, especially in more traditional, less high tech geographic areas?
Food for thought . . .
12
Boycott anti-contraception and anti-abortion states and corporations and individual business owners. Vote to defeat Trump in 2020. Organize support rallies for Planned Parenthood. Boycott sex with forced birther men. Bisexual women and nonbinary people assigned female at birth can partner with anyone besides cisgender men. Turn cisgender men who desire to control other people’s uteruses into social pariahs. Oh, that’s right, we have to worry about incel men becoming violent when they can’t have sex with cisgender women, so we need to take away their guns, too.
41
Abortion has been the Republican Party's single most reliable "issue" since Roe, and even then took a few years to get cooking. The current round of anti-abortion legislation in which red states compete for who can be most extreme is in response to new Republican justices on the Supreme Court who might decide to reverse Roe. It is also a form of campaigning for Trump. Allow me a fearless prediction: the Court will not reverse Roe. Doing so would cause too much backlash, but would also deactivate abortion's political role that has been so good for Republicans. What the Court is going to do is allow pro-Republican gerrymandering, voter suppression, a citizenship question on the census to reduce representation in blue states and such. Real Republicans don't care about abortion; they care about helping the Republican Party pick their voters, subvert democracy, and control the government so they can continue to look out for rich people. Of course, regardless of the Court, most of us know that outlawing abortion will not stop it. It is nice to know that safer options are available.
19
And how many of these men—since it is mostly men making decisions about women’s bodies and health care—quietly send their girlfriends to clinics to obtain abortions, for which they quietly pay, to avoid the scandal of bringing a child into the world? The sheer hypocrisy, though unsurprising, is astounding.
64
Many of us do not find Georgia's abortion law terrible at all. We are celebrating and supporting it in fact. We in the pro life movement applaud those states that want to stop the killing of the unborn and will continue to speak out against the devastation of abortion. We are gaining in strength and numbers and it is so encouraging to see. The movement has taken off in recent years and we have made a significant difference in helping pass these very important laws. We are finally seeing positive results in our many years of struggle but it has paid off. We are not through.
5
@KMW Dear KMW, abortion extremists are most certainly not gaining in numbers. Both Gallup and Pew research show that the numbers of people supporting extreme restrictions such as the GA law are decreasing.
Abortion extremists also do not hold the moral high ground, because they rely on extreme definitions of what constitutes a human life. Their definition is not logically definitive, not accepted by a majority.
Perhaps you are not though. I suppose perhaps we will see if Gorsuch and Kavanaugh lied when they stated that Roe v Wade is settled law.
31
@KMW
"Celebrating" is an odd word in the face of the real framing and context of this ruling.
There is simply nothing jovial or positive about the cold fact that in 2016 Georgia led the nation in maternal death.
You cannot discard the issue of the mother's health and claim what you are claiming- it is impossible.
Abstraction at the level you are talking about is fanaticism.
46
@KMW
Anti-choice individuals never address the problems associated with unwanted pregnancies: the economic stress on the poor, the health of the woman, the age of the potential mother, the circumstances that led to the pregnancy, the burden of congenital deformities, and the over-arching fact that abortion will always exist, legal or not.
Not to mention the right of every human being to have control over her or his own body.
Your "celebration" is, well, obscene.
21
There are two basic reasons for restrictive abortion laws. To begin with one must take note that in virtually every case this movement began in the South and over the past 30+ years has "evolved" up North due to the expansion and influence of evangelical religious institutions. Thus one reason is conservative Christianity. Keep in mind abortion [not even mentioned in the bible] has been going on since day one, as far back as human history. Any original opposition was out of necessity for survival of the human species. Along comes deity worship and men pronouncing the telepathic messages those deity conveyed. But the fact remains that in the modern world humans are approaching 8 Billion not a few hundred thousand and we're devastating the planet.
Secondly, more babies is political. More and more political power has moved south and the constitutionally proscribed decadal census is important to the south because more bodies mean more power.
Lastly, it's important to religious institutions because more bodies represent a future revenue source. The Jesuits used to [and perhaps still do] claim, "Give me your child for the first seven years and I'll given you a convert for life." Certainly the moral authority religion claims that all life is priceless does not apply when it comes to capital punishment or even caring for those fetuses after they're born to ensure they get good schooling, food and housing.
18
We hear so much about climate change and all the problems happening worldwide, but it seems nobody wants to talk about the elephant in the room.
What was the world population in 1800? One billion. It wasn't until 1927 that it reached two billion. It was only three billion in 1960, but it's heading towards three times that - nine billion people on the planet - in around 25 years time.
Right now we're at a bit over 7 billion people. Imagine what the world's resources were like 120 years ago, when there was just one seventh of the population there is now? How many fish in the ocean? How little pollution in the atmosphere? How many forests pumping out oxygen?
It seems to me there's no better time to incentivize people to simply not reproduce. We'll need people even less in a generation, once AI has really been implemented worldwide.
It's a tricky subject, but why not offer sterilization? Something's got to happen. This planet simply can't cope with more people.
If humans drastically cut reproduction over two generations, and reduced the population to around two billion people, or even just one billion, imaging what a sigh of relief the planet would feel.
We need hard and difficult discussions about reproduction, before it's too late. Perhaps the abortion debate will help trigger it.
We need to be collectively responsible. We can't talk about individual's rights any more, whether it's to have or not have "choice". We have to be responsible, or have it thrust on us.
24
@Jack Lee "We need hard and difficult discussion about reproduction, before it's too late." Your solution of free sterilisation is coercion, however it's framed. The environment is a civilisational problem that needs everyone working on it. Your idea to offer sterilisation will just result in poor women being pressured, shamed and blamed for wanting to be mothers. For a problem that is not of their making.
1
@Jack Lee
The problem is not the number of people, but who controls all the world's resources.
When the population of the Earth was a fraction of what it is now, there were still haves and have-nots — the filthy rich and the miserable poor.
@Jack Lee
Wow, sterilization. I believe the Nazi's felt that way also to purify their race. With all the contraceptives available today we don't need to sterilize people or count on abortions to control the world population. As population increase births go up exponentially. Education and contraceptives available to poorer nations would help considerably in controlling the world's population growth.
1000 pro lifers attended a rally on Friday, May 10 to support a woman and her teenage daughters after being harassed by Pennsylvania Democratic state representative, Brian Sims, on May 2. He put this on video for all to see and this was outrageous and vile behavior. The woman stood her ground and she and her husband have raised over $100,000 for the cause. This is so encouraging and shows the pro life movement is very much alive.
When 1000 people show up at a Planned Parenthood abortion facility it proves there is strength and support for the unborn. It was quite a wonderful site to see and the speeches were powerful by well known former Planned Parenthood worker, Abby Johnson and Lila Rose.
This is not the first time pro lifers have been attacked while participating in quiet vigils. It happened recently in San Francisco where an 85 year old man was kicked and beaten and this week a young fellow was punched in the face at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill by a 19 year old woman. She was arrested and charged thank goodness.
Things are really getting heated but the pro lifers will not let this violence stop them from doing this very important work. It gives them even more courage and strength to stand up for the unborn. They know they are doing the right thing and will continue to end abortion. They have many on their side and these violent acts only gain more supporters.
4
@KMW People who support pro-choice - especially the people working in Planned Parenthood clinics - are solidly on record as not supporting violent pushback against anti-choice demonstrators. This is not representative of pro-choice. People who do this are hurting the entire conversation.
Just a thought - Could it be that people doing this are provocateurs? They could very well be anti-choice supporters working to damage the pro-choice movement. If so, it worked.
21
@KMW, I think it's rich that you equate a state representative scolding an anti-abortion protestor with the very real murders and bombings that threaten abortion providers. Obviously there's a campaign among anti-abortion zealots to threaten and intimidate everyone associated with abortion, from doctors to clinic receptionists to patients. Will you denounce those people who identify abortion providers and provide their locations on the internet?
11
@KMW Your posts have moved me to increase my donation to Planned Parenthood. I encourage other readers to do the same.
10
The author sounds too optimistic as concerns the possibility that the anti-abortion forces will support the full legalization of self-induced abortion efforts. The anti-abortion forces are anti-woman and intent on controlling women and their bodies. If the serious possibility of legal self-induced abortion were to arise, I cannot see them supporting it, as it would give women a form of sovereignty over their own bodies. Also, we are witnessing a change of their stance from not punishing the woman in an abortion scenario to punishing her as the Georgia and Alabama legislation shows. We have a President who is on the record as saying that women who have abortions should be punished. The way to change this is to vote the misogynists out of office and deprive them of their legislative power. Expecting any good will from this fanatical camp is a fool's errand.
21
@Teedee : Please keep in mind that voting them out of office becomes increasingly difficult as GOP state legislatures pass laws that make voting harder for the poor (who are less likely to have ID, less likely to be near a polling place, less likely to have the kind of job that allows them to take off a few hour to vote -- and are overwhelmingly far more likely to vote Dem than GOP).
It is crucial for everyone rational person in those states to work to defeat those measure; work to ensure that best-practice voting machines are in place ( = with paper backup, in case hacking is suspected); work to make Election Day a national holiday so everyone can vote w-o fear of losing one's job; volunteer to drive those in need to the polls; and, if in a non-imperiled state, contribute $$ to efforts in those states.
Make sure that everyone you know understands that voting in every election is crucial, because the failure in many communities to vote in local elections led to GOP control of state houses, which in term led to gerrymandering that favors then GOP and a hideously non-representative, GOP-heavy Congress.
I’m an old woman—old enough to remember the days before Roe v Wade. Today’s movement towards the bad old days makes me sad but angry.
I had an (illegal) abortion in the 1960s. It was performed by a Philadelphia physician my father’s age. I traveled to his office twice by train from NYC. He injected me with something; I never asked what, I was so desperate. He offered to do the procedure without charge if I would have sex with him, pulling aside a curtain to show me where the sex would take place, an enormous round bed covered in a gold satin coverlet! I preferred to pay.
On the way back to NY after my second injection I miscarried in the train toilet. (The doctor said not to call or return to his office.) The pain was terrible and the amount of blood terrifying. (Two Catholic nuns, ironically, helped me find a cab when we arrived in NY.) I continued to bleed through the night and took a cab to the old Lenox Hill Hospital the next morning. Following a D and C, I was put in a large ward, given two blood transfusions and left to sleep off the anesthesia. They released me the following day.
That was a lucky experience in the bad old days. A friend went to Japan, where the procedure was legal (after she went to a dingy house in a poor neighborhood and decided not to knock on the door). Another lucky experience. Neither were the norm. Desperate women died regularly from abortions.
512
@Tomi Antonio I keep wondering what the moral and legal basis is for the GOP to hold that a fetus of any age is more important than its mother. I think there is no other kind of law that requires a parent to risk their life by being pregnant, itself a potentially very dangerous condition. Of course, fathers are given no such obligation.
124
@Bonnie I agree it is immoral but they have mastered the discussion by referring to the fetus as the baby and termination as murder. A good book that has helped me explain the morality of abortion, that it can be an ethical choice is The Scarlet A. Its written by a bioethicist and lawyer.
41
@Bonnie I agree it is immoral for the GOP to assign the fetus more rights than the fully formed human woman but they have mastered the discussion by referring to the fetus as the baby and termination as murder. A good book that has helped me explain the morality of abortion, that it can be an ethical choice is The Scarlet A. Its written by a bioethicist and lawyer.
13
However you consider abortion's status, there seems almost universal agreement that it should remain legal and safe for the mother; and rare, if the hypocrisy of us men (and it's almost exclusively men that take decisions for which they are incompentent at best, if not malicious at worst), when this ought to be a woman's choice. Although we men usually join excitedly and are 'all in' when sexual pleasure is at hand, another song comes up when our responsibility in paternity becomes an issue. And now, even contraception is being denied, witness the attempt to have healthcare insurance deny coverage? Are we really this miserably hypocritical, walking on a completely false moral ground? Live and let's live, and let stupidity languish; we men surely have better things to attend to. Let's hope.
493
@manfred marcus
How refreshing to see a man finally admit to the male role in public.
69
@manfred marcus
However much I agree with the information included in this opinion piece, I wonder how many readers (include in this the writer of the essay) "discovered" the side effects of misoprostol. Available by prescription, its side effects are not pleasant; it is not only a medication to be taken to end a pregnancy. Check with Google.
7
@manfred marcus
Guys will soon be able to more reliably contribute to the contraceptive process when Vasalgel begins its clinical trials. This is a semi-permeable gel that is a variation of the RISUG procedure that is finishing its decades-long trials in India. It’s just a gel injected into a man’s vas deferens. It’s non-hormonal, It will last multiple years, it’s been completely effective in preventing pregnancies, and the Indian version has been shown to be reversible (I read the American version is reversible in animals - people haven’t been tested yet).
32
I can't believe we are at this point. At the age of 54, I grew up in the shadow of the women's rights movement, and felt so empowered by it and the messages of equality. My mother told me a story about my aunt almost dying in the 1940's on the table of a backroom abortionist, before it was safe and legal everywhere. I have a daughter, a daughter-in-law, and nieces. To think that their autonomy is not in jeopardy in the U.S. in 2019 is unbelievable. We cannot turn back to the dark times when women had fewer rights. We must elect those who respect equality and the separation of church and state, which is clearly the problem with the anti-choice crowd.
50
If only a non-white-born-in-poverty child was held in such high esteem as a five-week cluster of cells. I am saddened by these southern states continual assault on women’s rights while they rank in lowest percentile of education, health care, etc.
115
The are deliberately designing terrible laws knowing they will go to the Supreme. Court when they believe a compliant Supreme Court will OK them.
30
I like how this article directly refers to anti-abortion busybodies who need to leave others alone as misogynistic forced birthers. These people have no business intruding into the autonomy of women and other people with uteruses. They don’t know how to mind their own business. They don’t seem to understand that their desire to control other people’s lives is the reason the rest of us are angry with them. I no longer have to worry about access to contraception and abortion. But I care a lot about young people who can get pregnant. Maybe I’ll have to become a misoprostol counselor in my retirement years.
30
Admire your proposal and education on this drug.
But we still need more info on legal considerations if women with nonprescriptive authority buying the drug to share with those needing it where it is deemed by law illegal. Will be charged with a crime like manslaughter.
I rather our medical care community offer ad hoc dilatation and curettage. At underground home clinics in medical personnel’s homes and offices. We need lawyers for defense and security as well to overcome our real “ Handmaids Tale “.
The drugs can be given as well in this milieu.
7
Presuming many of the poorer people who will be unable to obtain an abortion are people of color, this will hasten the day when white men are definitely the minority. is this really what they want? you'd think they would encourage birth control and abortion.
Just let women make their own decisions about their bodies.
22
Picketing of medical clinics by people protesting medical procedures on behalf of putative deities constitutes forced participation in religion on the people coming and going. Only free exercise of religion is protected in the US.
35
@Steve Bolger - My daughter had to make her way past protesters who assumed she was there for an abortion. She was in fact there for a PAP smear, which caught an early cancer. She was able to get it taken care of so was later able to give birth to our wonderful grandson. I wonder how many women are frightened away by the protesters so don't get the contraception, or the STD testing, or the cancer screening they need.
3
@Steve Bolger “Only free exercise of religion is protected in the US.” Yes, but for how long?
Why don't we start talking about neutering MEN, and imposing vasectomies on men once they have fathered two children, and impose harsher penalties on men who father children out of wedlock, refuse to pay child support to the unwed mother or even show any responsibility for the child or even acknowledge their parenthood???
This is the real issue. A woman's body and her right to chose for herself, her future and whatever future there may or may not be for a child born to a mother who cannot even finish her high school education. Right to life indeed! Whose lives are we talking about here??
56
I work for a non-profit organization that assists adults with developmental disabilities. I was entering demographics on a new release for about 30 individuals this morning. We serve a mostly white, middle class clientele. Imagine my surprise when a full 2/3 of the demographics listed Father: Unknown. So evidently quite a few men, besides refusing to take on any responsibility for a normal child they helped create, desert these disabled children in even higher numbers than I would have ever guessed, I do not know how these men can live with themselves. There should be laws for immediate DNA testing at birth for these children, and laws that would force the missing fathers to help raise that child, even if it’s just financial support. The child support laws as they are written appear to be gutless. If they weren’t, we would not have so many deserted children and moms living on welfare, Medicaid, and food stamps.
19
@A Bird In The Hand Unfortunately, I'm not surprised. This goes hand in hand with numerous studies that show when one member of a married couple gets sick, if the sick spouse is a woman, the marriage is 6x more likely to end than if the sick spouse is a man. I'd like to believe men are better than that and there are men who are but this is what the data consistently shows.
12
Think about why Mississippi and Georgia have the harshest anti-abortion law. It's a relic of slavery when progeny were property of plantation owners. Slaves had natural ways to trigger abortion and if slave-owners had known, they would have stopped that, too. If you ever wondered why it's so important to them that every fertilized egg comes to term it's not about religion, and it's not about "life", it's about wealth. Yes, slavery's gone and this is a subconscious reason, but it's there. They don't want poor (mostly black) women to have abortions because their Grand-daddies did not think black women had the right to determine their own fate, or to spare their children the fate of slavery.
25
The UN should impose crippling sanctions on the US for its long history of human rights abuses. At least the DPRK and the US can reopen negotiations now that there is some common ground between the two dictatorships.
18
Grew up in the South. Lived in the South. So much to love and admire. Left the South. Never goin' back.
311
@otto I understand totally, and agree. I spent some time growing up in the South, left, was enticed back, and will leave again permanently.
But make no mistake about it: the South is coming to you, me, and everyone else through its restrictive laws, its poor health and educational outcomes, and through its relative poverty.
The South is a drain for the federal dollars you provide with your taxes to help address the problems it refuses to solve.
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@otto
Yes, but the man at the helm, our suddenly, and devout and godly president, is a New Yorker. I bet that even his supporters believe he has paid more than one woman to get an abortion. But abortion has never been unavailable to those with money, and money somehow makes hypocrisy irrelevant.
13
They said the south would rise again. They are going to finally win the Civil War by draining our pocket books. I wish we lost in the first place and could have been two countries, I would feel a lot more comfortable for my two teenage daughters to grow up if I didn't have to worry about what states they could potentially be imprisoned for wanting to control their own bodies.
18
Current human populations are beyond the carrying capacity of the earth. We’re already overdrawn on our eco-capital. Nonetheless, we continue to add some 80 million more people to our numbers every year. Projections suggest we might level off at 10 billion, but who knows.
Meanwhile, relentless human population expansion, coupled with environmental exploitation and despoiling, is threatening the extinction of countless plant and animal species, not to mention functioning ecosystems on which we all depend.
In the face of this existential threat to the planet we have a relatively small group of religious ‘enthusiasts’ who oppose virtually all realistic forms of family planning and any shred of women’s reproductive autonomy. This pours gasoline on a fire that will eventually burn most everyone and their descendants.
We need to recognize family planning as a universal right, if not an obligation. The same goes for women’s social equality and their rights to education and healthcare. People opposed to abortion should never be forced to have them, but it’s not their business what others legally do with their bodies. Scientific birth control methods are highly effective but not perfect. And medication based abortions, as mentioned here, are also safe and effective, but sometimes fail.
Unwanted pregnancies should first be made rare, but termination procedures should always be available and legal within broadly acceptable bounds. We owe all this to women and the planet.
39
@Michael Tyndall
FYI , global birth rates are approaching the replacement rate of 2.1 births per fertile female. Only Africa is still above this rate and many of these babies do not survive. The world`s population is increasing because people are living longer. For chapter and verse on "Peak Kids" DON'T PANIC —find Hans Rosling on Youtube showing the facts about population growth. It is very entertaining as well as informative.
3
@Michael Tyndall
And maybe we should devote a few bucks to researching methods to put the health risks, lifetime responsibility and financial sacrifice involved in preventing conception on our male partners. Wouldn't that be loverly?
15
@Michael Tyndall
I was in India recently. 1.3 billion people, expanding every year by the population of Australia. Every year, India grows another 13 million.
We're reaching a point where letting people make decisions for themselves isn't going to solve the problem, unfortunately.
16
There has never been an effective anti-abortion law and there never will be.
I have no need for an abortion, but I cannot condemn women to less safe conditions or subject them to legal consequences as a result of their choices.
It boggles the mind that legislators at a state level could consider themselves sufficiently competent at their work to be able to produce a law on the matter as let alone the unintended consequences of such a badly written one.
Additionally, in writing and signing this into law, a huge amount if money is effectively commandeered into it's defense - as it will be attacked in the courts. That money should more rightly be used for the legitimate interests of Georgians and use to find the practices of hordes of lawyers.
31
Elections matter. That 2016 vote where some stayed home, pouted, voted 3rd Party is now showing its consequences.
66
@Practical Thoughts. Exactly right. I had a friend constantly posting on Facebook about how much she hated Trump. And then I found out she hadn't voted for President because she didn't care for Clinton. And defended it!
36
The pro forced pregnancy set has no interest in any compromise. The idea is to imprison all women in one faith's raging misogyny.
I believe the author has not taken into account the number of women being elected into government. Women will think differently and enact different laws based on different priorities. In the meantime, we need to get out the vote, put pressure on our judiciary to outlaw partisan gerrymandering and insist of safe ballot boxing.
44
@Catherine
I agree that abortion has become nothing more than a political lever for fundamentalist Republicans. Unfortunately, they are very clever in applying it where it can do the most harm to our systems. Ms. Sietstra and anyone stupidly promoting the safety & efficacy of DIY abortions are playing right into their hands.
6
@Quite Contrary : That's a bit harsh and not quite accurate.
Ms. Sietstra is being realistic about the short-term challenges that GA women are going to face. Far better to have a plan in place to help them than to let thousands of women suffer while we fight for however many years to elect rational pols who will enact better laws.
1
Abortion whether performed surgically or in pill form is still the taking of innocent human life in a mother's womb. It is immoral and inhumane. Pro lifers will continue to quietly protest outside of abortion clinics to end the travesty of killing our babies. We have made a significant difference to convince many people that abortion is wrong but need to do more. We have the time and energy and will not give up this very important cause.
4
@KMW
Absolutism for other people is not a religious practice, it is an anti-American need for either fanaticism or theocratic rule.
That you have no requirements for the male owners of living material puts you in the fundamentalist camps with the Taliban, Saudi Arabian wahabists, and evangelical extremists. Own that location. It has nothing to do with women or children.
73
@KMW increasing the maternal death rate through legislation criminalizing abortion is also immoral and inhumane. Preventing unplanned pregnancies is much more effective at reducing abortion rates, and something everyone should be able to agree on.
56
@KMW
I encourage you to read the very important book, Life's Work by Willie Parker, a Christian, OB/GYN specializing in abortions and a reproductive justice advocate. It may allow you to see another perspective and support women to know what is best for their bodies.
Abortion is NOT wrong, it is a life saver for many women, including myself.
And if you are 'Pro-Life' I assume you're also fighting against the death penalty, fighting for universal health care and working tirelessly to increase access to meaningful education for all children in this country. That is truly being pro-life - considering the WHOLE life - not just 'pro-birth'.
23
Cruel, inhumane laws like the one just passed in Georgia and other states make brutally transparent that these laws have nothing to do with "pro-life" and everything to do with control of women. None of these measures increases access to contraception, daycare, paid family leave, medical care. On the contrary, they are being passed in a context of wavering on laws to protect victims of domestic abuse, sexual assault, rape, sexual harassment. Not coincidentally, the wave of laws limiting women's autonomy comes at a time when more women than men are going to college, women are acceding to positions of power in areas where men traditionally dominated. Laws like these are intended to keep men at the helm and women behind them and dependent on them. Given the further context of laws reducing the rights of minorities, it is all part of a plan to maintain the traditional status quo -- to re-tilt the playing field more forcefully in favor of white, hetero males. Those in power have long understood that the law has limited power to oppress. If you want people to stay oppressed, turn oppression into a moral question, get the people to buy into it and they will enforce their own oppression, rather than question the status quo. Thus we have these laws coming in the wake of decades of so-called "pro-life" activism, which has over time, grown increasingly extremist, and bitterly divided women themselves.
58
Republican legislators appear to be headed towards trying to establish the sort of system that exists in some Latin American countries, where women are prosecuted and convicted for suffering unintended miscarriages. The terms of the increasingly radical laws being proposed underline the way in which many antiabortion activists are concerned to outlaw all sex other than between women and men who are married to each other (and even that sex would in theory be intended only for reproduction, so that traditional married couples could be prosecuted for using "obscene" sexual positions or practices). The aim, of course, is to submit women to the control of men, but it's also to submit everyone to a radical right wing fantasy of what life supposedly was like in the good old days. And we can be sure that some of the new laws will be vague, as against "obscenity", so that they can be administered capriciously and leave everyone unsure of when they may get in trouble, just as is done now with various laws in authoritarian states.
24
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" is the single most neglected phrase in the US Constitution. Who here concurs with surrender of autonomy over their own body to any layer of government? Don't crash the blog by all saying you do at the same time.
27
Georgia and a few other states that are passing anti-abortion laws are banking on a loaded SCOTUS to overturn Roe. Trump and his fellow Republicans may be unpleasantly surprised that if these new laws do go to the Spupreme Court they these new laws may be shot down as unconstitutional. That's the reason that these justices have a lifetime tenure to supposedly take politics out of the decision making process. It's happened before and it can happen again. SCOTUS may just act like the independent branch of government that they are supposed to be.
9
@VMG Don't bet on it.
11
@Donna
I prefer to think positively because if it's true that the Supreme Court can be bought then we have truly lost our democratic republic.
Sadly, this is not just a red-state problem. Just yesterday the Philadelphia Planned Parenthood clinic had a huge anti-choice protest which was organized by national online activists. PA already has fairly restrictive abortion laws and the GOP state house would like to make the laws even worse.
14
When abortion was made legal in 1973, we in the pro life movement were very distraught and not celebrating. We formed many pro life groups and set out to end the destruction of babies in the womb. We have been at this very important task for years but our efforts are slowly paying off. States are placing bans on abortion and Alabama is voting to outlaw it all together. This is wonderful news for life in the mother's womb. Our long awaited efforts have paid off. We will not give up this battle until abortion is a thing of the past. We are determined and have science on our side. We also have many people who are in this for the long haul. Strength in numbers is on our side too.
2
@KMW you are presuming that bans stop abortion, but that obviously isn't the case. As long as men choose to ejaculate during intercourse with women who are not actively trying to conceive, abortion will never be a thing of the past.
34
Hi KMW,
It appears that you have no plans to help me raise my child, help me get childcare, or a job good enough that can pay for childcare. Will you please be so considerate to stay out of my life?
Thank you in advance for considering not to turn a blind eye to my other problems.
44
@KMW - Do you know how many infants are born with tragic birth defects every year? I imagine you're determined to force women to continue those doomed pregnancies too, even though you won't be the one living in poverty and having to provide 24/7 care for a child that will have no quality o life.
"Every 4 ½ minutes, a baby is born with a birth defect in the United States. That means nearly 120,000 babies are affected by birth defects each year. Birth defects are structural changes present at birth that can affect almost any part or parts of the body (e.g., heart, brain . . . )
4
Women, this is exactly what happens, when you vote for ANY GOP candidate. There is no such thing as a moderate republican, they vote in lockstep. To them, we don’t own our Bodies. We just have a lease, and they control the terms.
Wake up, and Rise up. 2020.
136
This isn't about money or women's rights, it's about religious fanaticism and politics. Religious people from "revelatory" religions (wherein some god-like creature handed something to some man, it's always a man, telling him what needed to be done) are manipulated either by torturing that revelation or by the politicians who use the issue to curry their votes.
Abortion wasn't such a hot button issue, like gun control, as long as it was minorities getting abortions or being kept away from guns, until the republicans decided to use it as a wedge issue in the 60s and 70s.
Like so many things that the GOP is destroying for political gain, abortion's days are numbered.
21
For so long as pro-choice women continue to vote Republican (and they do, in large numbers), “Georgia’s Terrible Law” is the future. Every Republican Party platform since 1980 has contained an anti-abortion plank. Too many pro-choice women had ignored those planks and voted Republican anyway, setting up the partisan Republican court we now have, which may well overturn Roe v. Wade. Women are actually a majority of voters. If they lose the right to choose, it will be because they voted it away.
24
Women obviously aren't getting pregnant by themselves, so let's help men take on more accountability for preventing pregnancies. ED drugs are a great place to start.
First, we can make these drugs available only in one or two places in a state that men must visit in person. An initial appointment would include lectures on fatherhood, child support budgeting, and a mandatory prostate exam that isn't medically necessary, just awkward and embarrassing. After a 72-hour waiting period, the men could go back and get their medication, provided they have either valid marriage license or a vasectomy.
Sorry guys, but these are really powerful life-creating drugs and the government needs to look out for the unborn by preventing abortion, or at least making sure any unintended pregnancy will result in a baby that can be raised in a stable family situation.
If it seems intrusive and ridiculous for a government to have such control over your personal choices, family situation, and your bodily autonomy, even forcing you to have a medical procedure or a child you don't want, well, it is...
128
@Anniek
This is an excellent plan!
I would add that employers be free to not cover the cost of E.D. medications. Why should others covered under the employer plan be required to help pay for something they don't need?
29
The State again takes a giant step onto women. How will this be enforced? As the State cannot trust Doctors, Pregnancy Monitors reviewing medical appointments will be necessary. It is a page out of the Magdalena Laundry’s of Ireland. How will a woman prove that her miscarriage was not in fact an abortion. According to the Law, it will have to be proved. Perhaps a better way of handling this is for all GA men, at age 15, to submit to a vasectomy. They are reversible. C’mon boys, step up to the plate. Problem solved, eh? Upon marriage and a successful application the procedure can be reversed and the couple can have a baby, again a joyful and carefully monitored event. Georgia is an economic engine in this country. How many will want to move there now? Indeed, how many will move out?
21
@Jack Frederick Forced vasectomy would certainly be a much more effective means of reducing abortion rates than any ban.
21
@Jack Frederick
Forcing medical procedures on or denying medical procedures to anyone is indefensible.
Government must keep itself out of the bedroom.
2
The word “women" does not appear in this piece until several paragraphs in; the word "people" is used. It is young girls and women who menstruate and can get pregnant via male insemination. (Thomas Beatie, who gave birth to three children, was born a woman and kept his female reproductive organs when he transitioned to male gender, but that is a very rare case.) That women's health issues remain largely presided over by male politicians (who often behave hypocritically when women with whom they are involved become pregnant), and are not given the same respect/freedom/weight as those of men, still astonishes. Women still die in childbirth in the U.S. (women of color do so at even higher rates.) Ms. Siestra states that ‘A return to illegal abortion will not look like a return to the era of coat hangers,” but how can she me so sure? Women, especially those who are impoverished and don’t have a support network, will likely be desperate if pregnancy is unwanted and safe abortions are rendered illegal; they may self-harm if necessary. Birth control, even carefully taken/used, can fail. Too many politicians enact laws which make it very difficult for women to afford/obtain birth control. What about girls and women who are raped, and/or are victims of incest? Society fails to nurture/protect children after they are born. Poverty, gun violence, lack of quality health care and education condemn countless children to bleak lives. Women's must have agency re their own bodies and health.
16
As a native Georgian I am embarrassed by our hillbilly governor. (just review his campaign ads).
I have lived elsewhere (even Europe) and regret moving back here to be around family. I guess I was just too optimistic that Atlanta's progression, the movie industry etc. had actually had an effect on the rest of Georgian mentality.
But like the rest of the nation, I am also embarrassed by our President and its supporters as well.
Perhaps moving on and forward will require reevaluation once again. It is indeed a time in history to see that the majority of these changes are just not for the good of its citizens.
30
@Margi I agree, as a native Georgian, I'm embarrassed by Kemp, too. But please don't lump him in with hillbillies. He's a rich guy from Athens who goes to the Episcopal church (the church of the planter class), and just pretends to have that accent. He's a lying grifter, just like Trump.
2
OMG, I am so tired to pointing out - even to reproductive rights ADVOCATES like Ms. Sietstra - that labels matter.
"Pro-life" is an inaccurate euphemism that the right has bequeathed on itself to make its members sound like the good guys. Please quit using it!
And "anti-abortion" is also not an accurate label for those who oppose choice. NO ONE IS PRO ABORTION. It's not like women who find themselves in this unenviable position, select abortion like they would French Roast over Sumatran coffee.
The terms "pro-choice" and "anti-choice" are the most accurate and neutral ways to describe those who stand on either side of this debate.
41
@Marie S : Some style guides go with "pro-abortion-rights" and "anti-abortion-rights" bc many anti-choicers dislike being called what they are.
Fwiw, I vote for those terms, but the bottom line is that you are right to call out the AU for using "pro-life" -- thank you.
1
@Marie S I've chafed at these adopted labels for a long time. Even "choice," though neutral, diminishes the gravity of the issue. I "choose" which clothes I will wear, which cereal I take off the shelf, where I eat out, etc. Haven't come up with a bumper sticker term yet that represents either side accurately. At the very least, I never call the other "pro-life." That's an insult to all women who are mothers by choice, thanks to Roe v. Wade.
1
I am pro abortion and have no problem saying so. I am also pro vasectomy and birth control. I have as much trouble saying this as I do saying I’m pro cancer treatment, i.e. zero.
Let’s call forced pregnancy and theocracy supporters what they are: anti women; pro women’s slavery; pro rape & incest criminals; anti male responsibility; anti constitutional right to privacy; American Taliban. A danger that must be opposed and dealt with as such. Let’s deal with them accordingly, with appropriate fury and with the same level of good will they demonstrate, i.e zero.
How about we boycott companies headquartered in Georgia? Coca Cola, Delta, and whoever else is there. We liberals might not have political power but we sure have purchasing power to make our voices heard!
44
@NBO Only if you make sure those companies know of your boycott.
2
Why does everyone forget and not mention that Men make women pregnant. Why does everyone disregard biology. Condoms are sold at every drugstore and they are inexpensive and legal. Vasectomies are covered by insurance, though I am not sure if Medicaid or Medicare cover them. Unfortunately over the counter birth control for women are ineffective. Biology doesn't lie. Men should be fined. Men should go to jail. Oh but I forgot that abortion laws are made by men (look at the composition of the Republican party). Are women who hold right to life rallies emulating the Handmaids or do they get a sense of belonging by being a member of a group?
20
I keep hearing this argument, but it reveals a deep misunderstanding about Evangelical conservatives. For them, getting a woman pregnant who does not want to be pregnant is not a “whoops” or the result of irresponsible lust, as it is for the rest of us. For them, getting a woman pregnant who does not want to be pregnant is the number one goal. It’s how you establish ownership and control over a woman. (They have that in common with severely abusive spouses, actually.)
So no, they won’t be getting vasectomies. They love forced pregnancy. They hate abortion because it’s cheating. It lets women and girls escape when they’ve been acquired fair and square by a man.
31
Women in these states should refuse to have intercourse with men under these conditions (where abortion is banned and there is no penalty or consequence for the father). Imagine if the unintended result is the women choose women partners instead...
16
"They {doctors} could even be liable if they do it in another state." It is only a matter of time before they try to prosecute women for going out of state to get an abortion.
State laws that try to cross state lines...
12
The law actually criminalizes women who go out if state to get abortions, not doctors who go out of state to perform them.
8
"All men are created equal...Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..." the golden words of the US Declaration Of Independence.
"Your body belongs to me and I get to tell you what to do with it!" The reality women are still facing in twenty-first century America...
21
If we can protect the victims of anti-abortion laws there may actually be advantages to allow outlawing of abortions in certain states. The issue has been used to fool a lot of poor people into voting for the party of the rich. What if they no longer can be fooled into voting against "baby killers".
The outlawing of abortions would simply put it underground like smoking pot. But since it is something you need once or twice in your life, and the internet will allow easy access - you will not need to fly to Amsterdam to get it.
The actual damage will be much less than "dialing time back to 1973" and the political advantage of taking that issue off the table may be able to do considerable good in other arenas of health care.
4
First, at least one state added, “and it’s illegal to leave the state to get an abortion, too.”
Second the sole and only point is to get Roe dumped, after which they will go for a Constitutional change.
Third, they will also go after contraception.
Fourth, nice plan: stick it to women and girls, to get yourself better health coverage.
Briefly put, no.
19
@Ivan
Your argument neglects to understand that women seeking abortions across state lines will become criminals, subject to prosecution, under some of these new laws. Unless you're a doctor or a woman, Ivan, you really have no dog in this race, so maybe better apply your powers of analysis to a different issue, please?
14
@Quite Contrary
Actually it is extremely unlikely that going to another state (or changing state residency) for an abortion, could be made illegal or even enforced as illegal. The current (and unfortunately realistic) threat is the reversal of Roe, bringing abortion regulations back to the state level.
Every person in the country has a dog in this race.
2
What happens when self-induced abortions become illegal? I believe the spotlight just hasn't highlighted this method yet but it will get there eventually.
10
If abortions are to be outlawed, then we must have a law that holds the father financially responsible for the care of his child. In other words, we need a law that requires a man accused of fathering a child to take a DNA test; and if he is the father, he must share the financially responsibility for the care of his child. In light of our knowledge of DNA, there is no reason why the burden of an unwanted pregnancy should be on the woman alone.
96
@Jack Edwards Money is only part of the responsibility of male sex partners. Pregnancy and childbirth are still life-threatening conditions. If a woman dies from complications, the male should be prosecuted for voluntary manslaughter at the least.
2
No. We need to fight this law with everything we’ve got.
3
@Jack Edwards
There are plenty of men who are under court order to pay child support. Guess what? They don't.
5
Outlawing a simple procedure that can be safely performed at home by those who have training but not a formal medical degree is the height of idiocy. Women will discover that home abortions are far less expensive than “legal” ones costing $600 or more, allow women to reject male medical authority and don't require the approval of overwhelmingly male legislatures.
Homemade manual vacuum aspirators are easy to assemble, require a few hours of training to learn and can be used to extract menstral discharge, condensing five days per month of bleeding into a few minutes. Misoprostol is available over the internet and cannot be detected by tests. The results are indistinguishable from an ordinary miscarriage.
Major complications occur in one-quarter of 1 percent of cases.
The days of a few individuals making rules for the majority to follow are coming to an end. All Georgia's criminalization of abortion has done is hasten the process.
35
@Kris Aaron
A miscarraige is not a nosebleed.
Unless you have personally experienced or attended a miscarraige, and/or abortion, you are talking through your tin hat. I cannot imagine that either one would be anything less than terrifying and terribly unsafe without qualified and experienced medical assistance present.
Your "one quarter of 1 percent" is a highly suspect statistic thrown in to support an unsupportable position. Where did you get it and what does it refer to - safe, legal abortions performed under the auspices of a licensed MD, perhaps? Women die from self-administered abortions.
All women deserve to be safe and well-informed about a medically difficult/potentially risky procedure, not herded into back alleys or hiding from the law in their own bathrooms.
@Kris Aaron
My medical abortion (combination 2 drug therapy, take 1st pill, then the second 24 hours later) in 2005 through Planned Parenthood cost $800 dollars. I used money from my student loans.
1
When will men take responsibility for impregnating a woman? If a woman is punished for getting an abortion? What about the man?
101
The party who constantly shouts “freedom” would deny women the most basic freedom of all...the the right to make decisions about their own bodies.
Let’s say it until it finally sticks: The only “freedom” that the far right believes in is the freedom of white Christian men.
84
Any article that brings up the “coat hanger” meme is suspect. When does life begin and when does the state have the right to protect that life? It is time for the science to be acknowledged!
4
Yeah, because the science doesn’t prove that human life begins at conception, and cannot prove any such religious belief.
18
@Robert So Answer, when does life begin?
It's time for men to bear the brunt of pregnancy prevention. Mandatory vasectomies at 14, store sperm, and you're done.
149
How are these men making decisions about a woman’s body in a supposedly democratic country such as ours? How are they any different from men in Saudi Arabia or elsewhere in the Muslim / Arab world?
97
Different branding. That’s all.
20
Ah, the irony of those who call themselves "pro-life"!
In this Unites States, with the worst maternal mortality statistics in the developed world (26.4), they dream of punishing woman who dare to assert control over their fertility, while at the same time limiting access to birth control, and without any provisions for punishment at all for the male who caused the pregnancy in the first place. oh yes, and rape is the will of the Almighty...
76
Can't get an abortion, can't marry a person of the same sex, protests are confined to "free speech zones," the White House keeps track of anti-Trump websites you visit, expected to die of treatable ailments if you can't afford health care; are these some of the "freedoms" we're supposed to be be cherishing? Bah!
60
Isn't every sperm and every egg sacred, because of potential "life". Maybe the people who are against abortion should start there. Women should stop producing eggs, and men should stop producing semen. Maybe we can save the planet at the same time.
15
That image says a lot. Maybe Georigia needs some a north Carolinians to come down and help them start a real protest. When the Republicans in 2010, for the first time in over 100 years, took over control of NC government and started to promote and pass their hate-filled agenda tens of thousands showed up to protest in Raleigh. Led by the Reverend William Barber, these "Moral Monday" protest evetually led to the Democrats taking back the Governor's mansion and cracking the GOP's solid majority control of the General Assembly. We still have work to do to return all of NC government to progressives, but it starts with standing up. Come on Georgia, speak up.
33
One unintended consequence of this kind of law is that doctors will be reluctant to end dangerous pregnancies. The standards of "serious harm" are so nebulous that doctors may fear prosecution in questionable cases more than they fear losing the patient.
This is not a hypothetical. It happens in other countries like Brazil and until recently, Ireland. Pregnancy-related death rates in this country are no better than in some developing nations, and they're on the rise, especially in the same states passing these laws.
59
Unless we hold Georgia accountable, we embolden more states to follow.
GOP has no shame so I won’t even try to. But, oppressing women should not be the ticket to power for a political party. It’s clear Trump and Republicans want to run on this.
We start by not allowing the GOP the language to shape debate. The anti-choice bill should be called as such.
Let’s hit the state where it hurts, and use whatever leverage we have. We need to lobby businesses with economic clout in Georgia. We need to tell them this is not acceptable and register our strong protest.
Actions. Consequences.
51
Society, using government laws, has restrictions regarding what citizens can and cannot do with their own bodies. It is nothing new and no one had made a big deal out of it in the past. For example, you cannot sell your body parts, it is illegal. My kidneys are mine, why is the government stopping me from selling one? A woman (or a man for that matter although unlikely because men do it for free under most circumstances) cannot rent their body for sex purposes. Prostitution is illegal in most places in the USA. Someone has been imposing their morals on the rest of us. And we let them because we believe it is good for the individual and society. Getting the government out of the business of regulating what citizens can do or cannot do with their bodies is not the answer. You can argue to let the government out of the abortion regulations altogether for other reasons (the most powerful would be because we believe abortion is not morally wrong) but not because the government should not regulate what people can do with their own bodies. That would set a bad legal precedence.
2
@3Rs People are allowed to donate kidneys, and I personally see no reason why they should not be allowed to sell one. Also, women can choose to have sex freely and I see no reason why they should not charge for it. Sorry, I don't buy your argument.
How long will it be before the states governed by the far-right ban the sale of this drug in their states? It seems as if when the pro-life crew senses momentum, they will stop at nothing. If they can't secure an outright ban, then an initial fall-back position will be to force doctors to show the requesting patient ultra-sound visuals and/or require a 48 waiting period before the prescription can be dispensed. Included in the barriers would be mandatory parental notifications or that the patient must be hospitalized before the drug is administered. The barrier list could go on forever.
If these anti-abortion states are so driven by the belief that all life is sacred, then they ought to enact other laws as well. All prenatal care is taxpayer-funded. Working mothers have their salaries paid for by the state while they are in the last months of their pregnancy. Early childhood care should be state-funded as soon as moms can return to work. If they aren't working, then provide full assistance to find them a job at a living wage.
If these states won't do these things, then we have to ask how precious, really, is life to them? Theoretically, price should be no object.
Theoretically.
36
A better, safer and cheaper method of reducing abortions in the State of Georgia would be to make contraceptives more widely available. Allowing contraceptives to be sold over the counter as they are sold in Europe, would effectively lower the numbers of abortions in the State.
45
@Maureen
We are not in the fight to reduce abortions. Abortions have existed since woman first became pregnant and decided she didn't want to be a mother just then. Abortions will always be with us, no matter the availability or price of contraceptives. Always. Forever.
8
@Rea Tarr
Legal abortion is not an issue in Europe precisely because contraceptives are routinely sold over the counter at low cost.
5
Every time a new example of hate and self-righteous intolerance rears its head from one of the former slave states, I can’t help but feel grateful that I am New York born and bred.
Even though I am retired, I cannot see myself moving to any former slave state.
48
@Sailor Sam. Though I understand and agree, be reminded you are living in a nation with a president that breeds hate and self-righteous intolerance, even above the law.
Are you thankful for that?
And what is the Trump remedy besides enduring 2 more years until re-election and hope that our electoral college or his base doesn't put him back in office and he gets away with his obstruction?
12
@Margi: I am, at 67, wrestling with the desire to leave this country, not only because of Trump but because of the Republicans who enable him. He's mentally ill, he will never reach out for treatment; the Republicans are evil because they know exactly who he is and are enabling him.
No one is keeping us safe. We have leadership that wants to 'take us back' instead of forward into the 21st century. I am ashamed of my country. I am also frightened of fascism and the Republicans seem to truly desire one party power forever and hurt us in ways we have never seen before, but have been seen in many other countries.
I wrestle with this on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis.
2
It's time for men to bear the brunt of pregnancy prevention. Mandatory vasectomies at 14, store sperm, done. The state pays for medical procedures, including using sperm for pregnancy, and the males sign contracts which take out child support for children born to them.
Think of it - consequence free sex.
38
Ladies,
Get your IUDs now. I recommend the 5-year Paraguard. Mirena is also good.
It's sad, but this is one of the first pieces of advice I give young college women who come to me for advice.
IMO, we've reached a point of no return in American culture. It's time for two countries and a peaceful immigration process so that we can all move with little cost and effort. Let's not give the red-staters and republicans the bloody civil war they so desire.
In the meantime, I'll continue to honor my role as a teacher, with the mantra, "Teaching is a subversive act".
Resist.
117
@Beanie - Sounds a bit like my aunt's advice (she was an RN) to me when I left for college: Be good. And if you can't be good, be sanitary.
11
@Beanie
Um, no!!!!! Our married daughter is now facing a possible hysterectomy because the Paraguard came loose and a part broke off and is possibly embedded in her uterine wall. She is only 36. She will be having "emergency" surgery in early June, the first available time slot in our great healthcare country. Meanwhile she is facing a possible infection from broken piece. There are several lawsuits against the maker for women facing similar life altering experiences.
The Mirena IUD is linked to brain injury. It contains the hormone levonorgestrel and has been linked to a serious brain injury called Pseudotumor Cerebri (PTC). PTC, sometimes called Intracranial Hypertension (IH), is a serious medical condition occurring when cerebrospinal fluid pressure increases inside the skull. PTC develops when the pressure inside the cranium increases without an apparent reason. The symptoms of psuedotumor cerebri mimic those of a brain tumor, but no tumor is present. The increased pressure from psuedotumor cerebri can create swelling of the optic nerve, which if left untreated, can cause permanent vision loss. Another married daughter who used the Mirena IUD because she is on a migraine medication that renders the pill ineffective and causes severe birth defects to a fetus should she become pregnant, suffers from unexplained severe vertigo an early warning sign of PTC developing.
How these devices are still on the market is simply mind boggling.
2
@sharon
I'm on my second Mirena - it's been great.
3
I don't understand why these conservative Southern States want to punish poor women. A woman with money would head north for her abortion where the medical care is much better. This leaves the poor to lower middle income women to find services at home. Women should be allowed to decide what happens to their own bodies.
29
@Philip W well put. Women with money don't heed abortion laws - they can travel to another location to have it legally done.
This impact poor women the most. For women with money, it is an inconvenience.
1
@Philip W Ah, if only what you wrote were true . . . our new law in Georgia states that any woman who leaves the state for an abortion will also be convicted of murder and go to prison. Anyone who drives her or assists will be deemed a co-conspirator to murder and also go to prison. Any woman, according to the new law, who self-aborts, as in using the drug mentioned in the article, will also be found guilty of murder. And if the pregnant woman claims rape or incest she can get an abortion only if she filed a police report at the time of the event! The new law is outrageous. I am very upset about this and in the beginning stages of what actions to take. Fortunately others are as well. Three Hollywood film companies have already stated they will no longer film here (and the state makes considerable income from this industry.) It is time to boycott Georgia companies and tourism or anything else you can think of.
Some say the purpose of this law is for the lawsuits to go to court and end up in the Supreme Court, where anti-abortionists hope Roe V Wade will be overturned by our new justices.
So, for all those out there who simply bemoan the backward ways of the South, be warned their purpose is to come after all of the United States. This is truly an abomination and we must fight back.
As I told a 21-year old man I work with, if you enjoy sexual relations with women here in Georgia you will vote for a democrat. He didn't vote period. Ah, how shortsighted we can be.
2
And again my rights are dictated by mainly white (religious?) old men.
again I have to march and raise my voice to
protect what the Constitution already gave me.
More and more I am convinced that the last Presidential election was Bogus and my vote did not count.
32
This essay offers a rational and practical approach to the horrible future that we seem to be facing. But it leaves me unhappy. Not just because I am not sure self-induced abortion is possible at a later stage if the future mother finds out her fetus is defective. But also because of the optics of having to procure an abortion as if it were something furtive and shameful. I see abortion as both a practical and symbolic issue. It’s practical implications are easy: who want to have -or to be - an unwanted child? But the symbolic implications are just as important. Contraception and abortion are my saying to the world: I am not an animal, destined by natural selection to breed and die. I am a human being, and science has given me the means to oppose the blind voracity of nature and to chart my own course and shape my own life as I see fit. I have never needed an abortion but it has always been there as an option in case my contraception fails. I don’t want to feel that this option has now been reduced to something akin to the Prohibition-era moonshine. Georgia’s law won’t stop abortion but it will make women ashamed of themselves, which is exactly what it is trying to accomplish.
79
@Mor -- One quibble: "I am not an animal, destined by natural selection to breed and die. I am a human being ..."
Don't knock other animals. In virtually all ways, they're far superior to homo sapiens. They don't practice racism, sexism, or religious extremism. They aren't motivated by spite. Many resolve conflict via displays rather than deadly force. Many live in cooperative groups -- and some of those are matriarchal.
I'm waiting for the stories to come out about the male legislators' porn habits; infidelities; trolling of women (in their offices and communities); domestic and sexual abuse; drug habits; all-male club memberships; locker-room antics; and unplanned pregnancies.
You know these guys aren't choir boys (though they may have once been them).
Time to expose them for who they are.
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@Ames
Yes!!
2
@Ames
Agreed. People keep talking about it being 2019. Let’s act like it. We women have many tools to fight against this.
5
I live in Georgia. The enactment of this law has enraged and depressed me. Part of that anger is that I don’t know what effective measures I can take to have it struck down. Politics is hopelessly partisan here. That is a huge chunk of the problem. Stacey Abrams.....if only....
477
@LGW - I live here too, and we can rail against the south all day long with good reason, but "south" takes a back seat to the primary purveyors of punishment for women who get pregnant - republicans and their marriage of convenience to evangelical extremists - they're not geographically exclusive to the south, by any stretch.
63
@LGW
Deb's comment below is spot on. While the South has decided to enact coercive laws, the main reason for this is so that the GOP can string along the Evangelist and their quest for the holy grail of no choice.
The GOP cares nothing about women's health issues or rights; they only string along the Religious Right to capture their votes and the GOP is happy to enact any coercive law to get power
19
I agree with what I have read thus far. It's easy for some guy to get a woman pregnant then bolt the scene. Unfortunately its all over the country, not just the South, that this is happening in. In Georgia, where Kemp is governor, the law says that a female at any age can have an abortion if she is the victim of rape or incest, or her life is in danger if the pregnancy continues. The sex could be consensual and in rare cases to get an abortion the pregnant women, or girl, could claim rape to get an abortion. The guys life is ruined. Plus, who is going to decide if rape or incest happened. If by trial in court, by the time the case is decided the fetus would be 3-5 years old human. In the case of the mothers life being in danger if the pregnancy continues, who decides, someone appointed by the politician with little, if any, background in medicine. Plus hypocrites like Gov. Kemp, don't believe in medical care for anyone except the wealthy, the mega rich that Kemp and other like minded politicians work for. If one Kemp's daughters became pregnant due to rape, or if he thought she might, he would hide it and do whatever it took to get her an abortion in secret.
7
I don't find it encouraging that we are in a situation where it is suggested that we look at what oppressed women in developing countries do about unwanted pregnancies for guidance.
167
Who should we looked to...republican lawmakers, that’s a joke, of course.
9
That is what regressive ideas and policies bring about. Electing politicians who cling to such ideas and policies enables their implementation.
11
@SkL
That's what was going through my head the entire time I was reading the article; it has come down to this? I live in a country where many women do not have insurance, has little regard for family leave, early childcare or even k-12 education and knowing about the rising mortality rates in childbirth, wants to limit my access to birth control and make it illegal to have an abortion? Wow! So happy to be a woman in the USA! I am sick of the 'scary socialism' propaganda that is being bandied about (I recently heard a prime time cable pundant suggest we would soon look like Venezuela if the 'Dems' had their way and 'Dems' 'want' abortions up until birth). Lets forget the name calling and fear mongering and really try to find solutions such as early healthy sex ed, access to birth control, safe solutions for abortion. Lets agree to respectfully disagree on some issues . Lets make this a great country for all women who want to become mothers and quit demonizing the ones who dont.
6
It's time to boycott Georgia companies. I have already started with my diet drink selection and my airline.
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@osavus
Agree. I'm looking at mail-order flooring for my three bathrooms that no local flooring companies carry. I found five companies: one in Georgia, one in Tennessee, one in Ohio, one in AZ and one out of Chicago. Guess who's getting my business. All these companies have contact us forms. I intend to write to them that although I would consider purchasing this product from them because of on-line reviews and A+ BBB ratings I can not engage in commerce with businesses that reside in states with such draconian laws regarding a woman's right to choice and health and welfare of her own body. Maybe if enough wallets are hurt the people of these states will stage a revolt against their patriarchal governments.
13
@osavus Make sure to contact those companies - Snail mail, email, twitter, etc to make sure they know.
10
@osavus
Thank you for binging us back to the one thing that most MEN IN BUSINESS pray to, the almighty $. As a physician, we can also stop collaborating in GA medical school studies and not attend their conferences until they public ally come out in strong opposition to this disgusting law that effects their patients and ability to practice.
10
How does one go about obtaining misoprostol legally? I can ask my doctor to write a prescription for it and then donate it to a facility that collects the drug for women in need. Are there other ways to gain access to this drug, other than a degree in chemistry and access to a lab? I live in a state that would like to completely ban abortion and this issue worries me. I don't want to get anyone into trouble, but I think the focus now should be on proactive measures, not legislation.
45
It’s easily prescribed. We use it for other reasons as well... induction of labor, insertion of an IUD. It’s well known in the “biz”. I’m a women’s health NP.
13
Brilliant, brave woman. Thank you, Ms. Siestra for sharing your thoughtful alternative with the world.
52
I love the idea of being proactive (miso) but I resent that in my country, the richest country women are yet again on the political chopping block. I am working tirelessly in the state of Rhode Island to codify Roe V Wade.Our legislation Reproductive Health Care Act (S152) is still waiting on a vote . Rhode Island is solidly Democrat with Catholic Church having a huge influence in politics here. As I work towards this I am in awe that in 2019 this is an issue. It seems to me as more women are getting involved in politics the far right is doing everything to marginalize women and their control over their bodies.
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@LaLa
Thank you for posting and for your work. I'd add that R.I. is solidly Dem but controlled by House Speaker Mattiello, Senate President Ruggerio, and the state party under Chair Joe McNamara, all solidly DINO. We can't look to Dem. Gov. Raimondo, a woman, because she only exerts influence when an issue becomes fiscally or politically convenient, and that hasn't happened yet.
4
Are women now to be required to keep meticulous records of the start and finish dates of all of their menstrual periods so that the government can effectively enforce this law? Will an agency be created to manage the requirement - something like the IRS for women's periods? When can women expect to have to start submitting their records?
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@Cornflower Rhys
And if you're pregnant, you must get the fetus a Social Security number!
24
This a deeply delusional essay. The idea that "pro-life" activists (I prefer to call them pro-slavery) do not wish to punish the mother is mistaken. Decades of increasingly strident rhetoric have culminated in the Georgia and Alabama laws, which clearly target women directly. The anti-abortion movement has always been about a deep fear and hatred of women, and if given the opportunity, its proponents will inevitably gravitate towards the maximum position, that women do not have fundamental rights over their own body. This is why the term "pro-choice" is problematic, by the way. It is a weak euphemism for the real issue: women's freedom.
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@Chris Protopapas
Important point, and often overlooked.
20
@Chris Protopapas
I agree. The prospect of legislation at the federal or state levels in the at-risk states, protecting self-induced abortions, is wildly inconsistent with the current reality. Eventually, women who require abortions will have to move to and remain in one of the rational states that permit abortion.
20
@A2CJS
Moving to another state to obtain a legal abortion will not happen. What will happen is a resurgence of back alley abortions, criminal persecutions, injuries, deaths and suffering of poor and young women who lack the support to safely end an unwanted pregnancy. Not to mention the resulting children. Some rational doctors, midwives and nurses will disobey the law, and risk their medical licenses. Or sanity will prevail after the next election and the laws will be found unconstitutional or overturned on other rational grounds. Or, we will have another civil war and the South will secede.
14
One man one time. . .
8
The ONE thing all unintended pregnancies have in common - they were caused by a man irresponsibly ejaculating. Let's have the state control those few seconds of male pleasure before we let them further impose on a woman's entire life.
If this seems extreme to you? Welcome to the patriarchy - you're swimming in it.
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@AMinNC
Yes to this. For those who may not have heard of her I highly recommend looking up the Mormon mom of 6 who wrote an amazing article regarding abortion. You 'll find it online by just searching with her name, Gabrielle Blair and abortion.
16
@AMinNC
Not true.
Sometimes contraceptives fail.
Sometimes both partners are careless.
The goal is less control of people's sexual lives by the state, not more.
7
@Jerry Engelbach
Respectfully I think you miss the author's point. She's expressing fury at the double standards. Women bear the brunt of this patriarchal nonsense.
It's only fair therefore that if we are slaves so are you.
I propose a law that men should be neutered so as not to risk the lives of the unborn.
I propose pills that would reduce men's sexual pleasure to nothing so as not to risk the lives of the unborn.
I propose strict limits as to how much canoodling a man can do so as to prevent his possible involvement in the harming of an unborn.
After all women don't count why should men?
10
"Instead of bemoaning the impending loss of legal abortion while leaving marginalized people alone to take on the risks of self-managed pregnancy loss, those of us who are more privileged can organize to reduce the potential harms."
Man... the straining to avoid the offense of being competent vs incompetent is amazing here.
3
The world is full of people who think they can manipulate the lives of others merely by getting a law passed. -Groucho Marx
76
We tilt increasing toward a true socialist, totalitarian state. Even if your fetus has barely formed, it is now the property of the State, who will intercede into any decision regarding that entity, and criminalize any attempt to thwart that effort. As a result, the mother of that child also is now property of the State. I once scoffed at the notion of the State deciding who lives or who dies, but with the oncoming debacle of health care costs, where only the bottom line of the health "care" industry is a factor, it now seems a chilling possibility. Think being 'redundant' was only for Fritz Weaver in an old "Twilight Zone" episode? Think again.
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@Richard Beard
Socialists support abortion rights and universal healthcare. I'm not sure how you managed to blame socialists for the actions of reactionary conservatives in this country.
123
You are using the term “socialism” incorrectly.
76
@Nick
Thank you, Nick, for clarifying Richard Beard's use of "socialist"!
30
The citizens of any state retain the right to decide what does and does not go on there. If you don't like it, you have an easy choice to make.
California doesn't particularly like private enterprise, so it makes running a business there very challenging. Georgia doesn't like abortions.
This is the nice thing about having different states. When things are the absolute same everywhere those things generally are done more poorly as time goes on.
The people to avoid are those who insist that they know the best way to do EVERY single thing and if you don't like it, the central gov't will just deal with you.
5
Last time I checked, California was a hotbed of private enterprise. Silicon Valley may have been jump-started by government funding, but it's a flourishing capitalist ecosystem now. Not to mention Hollywood, and marijuana cultivation
33
@The Observer
States are not chosen the same way one might pick out a pair of shoes and many, for financial and social reasons cannot just pack up and leave.
29
@The Observer
No state is entitled to violate the civil rights of its residents. We fought a war over this.
25
Here is a language Republicans understand and the very basis of capitalism: private ownership. A woman's body is her private property. What she grows in it—and if she decides to stop growing it—is only her business. Female citizens have the right to body ownership.
694
This is the crux of the matter. It's not "pro-choice", it's pro-freedom. Conversely, it's not "pro-life", it's anti-freedom, or pro-slavery if you will.
107
@RussiaIfYouAreListening True but by that same logic, people have the right to refuse vaccines. Their bodies are their private property so they do not have to inject themselves with anything the state demands. Only if they cause others injury are they liable.
7
@CNNNNC
Not if the vaccine they refuse stops the spread of a dangerous, highly contagious virus like measles.
You can't have someone follow around a person refusing that vaccine, waiting to prove that they have spread the virus, to then charge them with a crime.
48
We need to start asking "pro-life" men if they are willing to have sex only twice in their lifetimes. Because there is no 100% effective birth control for women, the only way for a woman to control her fertility (and her life) is to only have sex when SHE wants to have a child. The average woman in America has 2 children. Which means that in a "pro-life" society, all men who are anti-abortion and support women's self-determination might, theoretically, only have sexual intercourse twice in their lives. If that sounds nonsensical, then you realize how the "pro-life" movement is not about protecting "life," but about controlling women's lives and women's sexuality.
510
@Amy Luna
Or, they could contribute to a sperm bank then get a vasectomy. Their sperm would then be available when they and their spouse/significant other decide to procreate. They can have all the "safe" sex they want, with no chance of having an unwanted pregnancy.
55
@Lori Wilson
Yeah, guys who can't be bothered to stop at a drugstore before going out on a date will definitely hop right on board with this idea.
23
@Quite Contrary "Bothered to stop at a drugstore?" (to buy a condom, I presume?). Such a flippant remark about such a life altering (and life threatening) state as pregnancy is disrespectful of all women. As I stated, there is no 100% effective birth control, including condoms. For women to truly have bodily control over their fertility, there is no other choice but for men to limit their sexual activity to only having sex when women choose to procreate. It's time men of conscience stopped believing--and espousing--the "just stop at a drugstore" solution. It's not a solution. It's a lie.
6
it’s hard to imagine a more thorough or intimate violation of individual rights than these anti-choice laws.
where’s the outrage from libertarian, “small government” republicans?
273
That's why "choice" is the wrong word. We're talking about freedom, and the other side is not "pro-life", they are pro-slavery.
49
@h leznoff
Not to mention the AMA. Notice the silence of doctors, many of whom will continue to consciensciously provide "D & C's" as a humane service to their patients who request them, as they have forever. These laws just make it more dangerous for them to do so, with some insane anti-abortionists hanging around medical facilities.
23
@Quite Contrary exactly. It is a cash business. Abortion laws don't impact women with means - only poor women.
4
Please. If you're going to cut all an archaic error of women fending for themselves even more than they do know, at the very least, pledge to take care of your citizens. Republicans speak of the life of a child, but not of its living conditions. They speak of a more humane world, but look to cut all entitlement programs. This is a selfish, irresponsible and absolutely hypocritical avenue of policies. Please, makes sense!
100
Male supremacy is an ideology, not a sex, and is alive and well in the United States. Men and women can be and are male supremacists. Male supremacist control of women's bodies will always exist as long as a critical mass of women themselves normalize, enable and support male supremacist control of women's bodies. As long these women believe it is "God the Father's" natural order for women to "submit to their husbands" (in the bedroom and at the ballot box), and/or that the rights of an embryo are more important than the personhood, health, and safety of females as a class, all women will continue to suffer under the oppression of codified male supremacy.
175
@Amy Luna I would add that the rights of an embryo are much more important than making sure the result of carrying that embryo to term, is taken care of, is wanted by a loving family, has affordable health care, or even has enought to eat.
4
@Amy Luna@Amy Luna I would add that the rights of an embryo are much more important than making sure the result of carrying that embryo to term, is taken care of, is wanted by a loving family, has affordable health care, or even has enought to eat.
@Amy Luna
I’ve always said that women have been and always will be the greatest enablers of patriarchy. Without their consent, it would have crumbled years ago. Yet you keep seeing them at the MAGA rallies, fanatical, flag-waving traitors to their gender and their daughters.
This matter has become so polarized that reasonable views are no longer considered. I have been pilloried for the following views, but please read on.
While a woman's access to birth control should not be restricted and the concept of "forced pregnancy" is anathema to most rational people, it must be admitted that those opposed to unrestricted abortion do have a point, though they are clearly going too far.
I oppose the use of abortion as a primary means of birth control. Please allow me to repeat that: As a PRIMARY means of birth control.
The primary means of birth control should be just that, prevention of conception to begin with. That, to a rational mind, should present as the logical thing to do.
There are myriad reasons I oppose abortion as an acceptable method of "birth control". Among them, it encourages: a cheapened view of Human life; a thoughtless approach to ones life and the consequences of ones actions.
That said, the anti-abortion crowd also errs, somewhat hypocritically, when it opposes sex education and funding for information and supplies on contraception and rape prevention.
11
@joe. What you oppose is irrelevant. All you get to control is your own body and behavior. There is no such thing as “unrestricted abortion.” Women know when termination is the right decision for their situation. A stranger’s philosophical concerns do not factor in.
196
@joe I doubt that there are many women who view, much less utilize abortion, as a "primary" means of birth control. I support the sort of sex education that, I have read, takes place in the Netherlands. Such education includes how to communicate and how to use contraception. Further, I am curious about your suggestion that the anti-abortion crowd opposes "rape" prevention. The best way to prevent rape would involve teaching males not to do it. And, perhaps more women like myself should come forward with any childhood reminiscences about rape, pregnancy and community based birth control which did not always work as the elders planned. Beatings and character assassination of girls and girls' families was standard fare. Anti-rape instruction involved being handed an "emergency dime" to put between one's legs on prom night.
68
@Debra Merryweather Specifically, the emergency dime was supposed to be placed between the knees....in case anyone out there wants to return to those days.
21
Can we stop referring to justices like Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch as “conservatives”? They are not conservative in the true sense of conservative. They are partisan, Republican hacks. Roberts has demonstrated some non-partisan tendencies. The rest of this group ignores the Constitution to grant imaginary rights to corporations, favor Christianity, fondle guns, trash the environment and repress women and minorities. Exactly the opposite of how real conservatives would act, but exactly how Mitch McConnell and his GOP cronies want the SCOTUS to behave. These are not a conservative judges, these are Republican judges.
484
We have to start talking about Blue State secession. Blue states funnel a lot of money into Red states. Blue states have more robust economies than Red states. But the polarization of our country has shown, more clearly than ever, that our basic philosophies, are priorities and our very different attitudes towards women, minorities and the environment will never be resolved. I get tired of hearing that Texas is really a great state because it has Austin. Texas seems to want to go it alone, with all of its bragging about "Texas proud," a lifestyle that I find unconscionable. Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas et al are constantly at the bottom of the list as far as education, equality, personal freedom, and environmental awareness are concerned, and they have been there for decades. Two countries is the only way that we can ever move forward on anything. We have locked horns and it's not going to get better, it's going to get worse.
141
@Joanna Stelling
Yes, the top one percent do pay a huge share of taxes paid, but then again, that was your side's idea.
The rich moving to the two percent of the counties with the most people was their idea.
It works out, but please don't pretend living in one or the other makes anyone better or worse.
4
@Joanna Stelling
I sometimes think the Republicans have been destroying the United States ever since Lincoln made the mistake of not letting the confederacy leave when it wanted.
68
@Joanna Stelling Houston is actually more progressive than Austin, Texas. There are, at least, two blue bubbles in Texas.
16
Life and death decisions have always been a legal prerogative of family members and next of kin. Whether the decision is to terminate a pregnancy or pull the plug on grandma, that decision has historically been left to family members as a private decision. The state would only step in if some kind of illegal force were in play. If the state challenges that established legal order, there will be a precedent to have the state make decisions about everything.
43
Just as Republicans figured out that by exploiting majority minority districts increased their power at the state level so too will they figure out that the tens of millions of new immigrant ardent Catholics, from the same countries where abortion is banned, will be useful in passing more restrictive abortion laws in otherwise liberal states. Let's see how those unintended consequences work out.
7
@CNNNNC
Evangelicals are the main drivers of this, not Catholics. I live in a majority-Catholic blue state.
11
Naomi,
Massachusetts has a very active right to life committee (Citizens for Life) and has been instrumental in passing laws defending the pro life cause. I am a proud member and active participant. I am also female.
Do you remember the Supreme Court case McCullen vs, Coakley from a few years back. Mrs. McCullen fought to stand in front of Planned Parenthood within a certain distance while attending a pro life vigil and won. She was determined to have her freedom of speech which is guaranteed by our constitution.
This liberal state of my birth which was not always this extreme has done the right thing and fought for the lives of the unborn. They have saved many lives while doing so. Thank goodness for that. I am proud of this fact.
@KMW
I actually live in Rhode Island, founded by Roger Williams as a haven for freedom of conscience.
When the anti-choice movement devotes as much effort to reducing our nation's shamefully high rates of preventable fetal malformations and prematurity, as well as pregnancy-related deaths and complications --as bad as some developing nations and still rising--then you can call yourselves pro-life.
3
Some excellent suggestions here. And while some regressive conservatives may want to try to shut down internet access to their meds we have seen how useless that control mechanism is for illicit drugs so far (Viagara anyone? How about fentanyl?)- the FDA approved this drug combo for use in ALL of the states - and cannot prevent women from obtaining and using it. Education and access to info is needed here and I will donate to any group that is preparing and providing it and legally challenging access restrictions (Like Planned Parenthood). Although i am past my child-bearing years, I have daughters, and have friends with daughters, and no one should tell them when and how they must have children if they choose not to.
115
@E Campbell
As an Ob/Gyn practicing in Western Europe, where medically induced pregnancy interruption is the preferred method, I agree with you. There is a caveat, however, in that documentation of the pregnancy as intra-uterine is a prerequisite here. Education for women using this method would need to have clear indications of when to seek medical help because ectopic pregnancies can be rapidly fatal. My question is will there be doctors who are free to help, or will they be required by law to report the woman or face prosecution. This is a truly terrible and frightening development in the US.
3
As red states chip away at abortion access, Ms. Siestra's article highlights comparatively new avenues for women to have control over when they have families.
Today you can get a prescription for a Mifepristone-Misoprostol regime online and to have the prescription filled online with the drug delivered to your house.
Trump's FDA is cracking down. Aid Access, a European online drug provider has been ordered by the FDA to stop delivering abortion meds to the U.S.
Anti-abortion groups have been assailing the online providers anticipating horror stories about botched pregnancy terminations.
However, the same FDA that, under Trump is attempting to ban online sales has published data that shows that out of the 3.4 million women who had terminated pregnancies between 2000-2017, there were 22 deaths.
According to the NIH, the likelihood of a woman dying from complications of term delivery is ten times higher than from a medically induced abortion (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1785176/).
This is just Trump cow-towing to the hard core 20% of Americans who oppose abortion under all circumstances and who won't vote for anyone who doesn't share their views.
The solution, as with many other problems with America today is to vote Trump out of office so we can have policies based in science and aimed at helping people.
236
@Scott Brown I really think a two state solution is the only possible choice here. Obviously the Republican Party is no longer a party, it's a terrorist organization. How can we assume, even if we win in 2020, that these fanatics won't be doing some very bad things behind the scenes, like they're doing now. Getting rid of Trump won't get rid of his fanatical base. Blue USA and Red USA.
95
@Joanna Stelling that’s a scary thought. I just bought a house in Florida.
5
@Joanna Stelling
The 2 state situation would solve my "Fly Over" problem when travelling. Until the Trump-Kushner crime family & their GOP abettors are out of office or better yet in jail I refuse touch down in the silly Excited States.
19
No penalties for men who participate in causing unwanted pregnancies? Where is the justice?
789
@Toni
Politicans get votes from single issue voters if they are actively anti-choice, it’s that simple. My guess is, female Republican candidates, do the same thing. It’s not gender, it’s winning. The other truth is, men don’t get pregnant, women do, and far more women should be supportive of abortion rights.
50
@Toni
How would that work? I say I didn't want to get pregnant, but he didn't listen? Let's not complicate things more than they have to be.
2
@Rea Tarr Well that does happen a fair bit, doesn't it? In fact, full access to reproductive health is the only way women can exercise any control over their personal and economic lives, and this is demonstrable worldwide. Many men view women as property and a source of sons and wealth.
62
So let’s balance the Georgian “forced motherhood” with forced fatherhood and if the fathers cannot be found seems like the Georgia Statehouse should become a daycare center. Better way for each Congressman to spend the day.
354
@SC
If they want the state to control bodies, I suggest mandatory kidney donation for any medically eligible man who can save a life on the UNOS waiting list.
I am not asking them to do anything I have not done myself.
31
@SC
I wouldn't trust my child to a daycare center staffed by Republican members of the Georgia legislature, or for that matter most Democratic members either.
3
Access to alcohol was outlawed under Prohibition. Production and consumption shot up with no rules to effectively control and manage the unintended and unsafe consequences. Shut down safe access to abortion and abortion counseling — well, we know what will happen now that chemistry is enabling self induced abortion.
63