To the women I know online and offline:
Important gains of the last 40+ years are now under attack. In all probability, they will be eroded over the next 20+ years. This is largely due to the instillation of a right-wing majority on the Supreme Court and the better state-level legislative organization of the religious right. Abortion and contraceptive freedom will no longer be a given. While I do not think this will go so far as to affect individual property rights, I will put nothing past these people.
Assuming this to be true, it is time to seriously consider underground organization for these dark times ahead. I have no idea how this should or could be done. But the time to begin planning is before the storm hits, not after.
The days when women may have to cross state lines to obtain an abortion are more than possible. This will require funding, transportation and safe places to stay while in transit. For contraception, I would strongly suggest day after pill stockpiles in case of rape or incest along with a way to effectively and quietly communicate the whereabouts of such medicine. Pharmacists in several states are already denying this medication to customers on moral grounds. It is only a matter of time before this becomes more widespread and state sanctioned.
This may seem extreme. I think not. Bush has publicly demonstrated he is the pawn of the extreme rightwing. They are the only constituency who still support him. Politically, he must maintain their approval or fall even lower in the public’s perception. These people will stop at nothing to legislate their morality on the rest of us. And regrettably, the social advances women have made over the last few decades are the obvious, immediate targets.
Like our dark past….we will talk to each other…and now we have blogs. We will share information faster than we did in the kitchens of the past.
I wonder how they will prosecute those of us that grow Rue in our gardens? I wonder if they even know what Rue is?
I wonder how they will find and prosecute those of us that will support and sponsor underground transportation to rebellious states – like California?
I wonder how they will take away the businesses that we own and the wealth we have accumulated? They couldn’t even do that in prior centuries if women didn’t marry?
I wonder will we be sent to our own version of Guantanamo until we confess to witchcraft for not believing the Christian dogma?
As was said in the diary on Witches over the weekend…”same shit, different century”.
oh SallyCat, I wish you were right about California being a rebellious state, but as you know (and some out of Calif. may not know) we’re fighting a reproductive rights fight with Prop. 73 next week. Will California women stand for it? I fear 73 is a real stealth attack.
Prop 73..I know it’s a stealth attack…we are fighting back. I also have a lot of faith in the CA courts overturning the law should it pass. It is in direct conflict with other laws in the state including right to privacy.
DFA’s across the state and Dem organizations are calling and doing mailers.
I actually expect ALL of the governors measures to go down to defeat…Prop 73 through 78. Most people I know are voting no on general principle…if the governor is for it – vote no.
Prop 79 and 80 who knows…
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/1/112125/308
Lots of us can go make an impact, in the streets on the blogs….starting with fighting on the Orange site….
Sally, I am relatively young, yet in such utter disbelief that I can so fear my own country… I am far from being super politically active, tho’ I am very much aware and informed. I hate confrontation. This is a key issue for me… No, womens’ rights IS the issue for me. And the right to an abortion tops the list. I just cannot believe how scared I am now…
Fear is what kept us quiet for years in the 1950’s and 1960’s about birth control. It was fear for our jobs that kept us quiet so long about sexual harrassment and discrimination in the 1970’s and 1980’s.
They are trying to return us to the days of fear.
Sherm – they can try but they can’t win if we keep talking to each other.
I wasn’t much older than 13 or 14 when I learned about birth control in my Aunt’s kitchen – in Utah. Holiday dinners – women in the kitchen cooking – AND talking. Now we have blogs, we have reasonably anonymous internet email, we have telephones – including disposable cell phones and phone cards.
Standing side by side and arm in arm we are still strong. Time to get out my copy of Helen Reddy “I am Woman”. Yep – we’ve heard it all before, when we were down there on the floor.
Reach out and one or more of us will hold you strong.
Right next to you. I may be afraid, but I am not being silent… And I refuse to be invisible. This one definitely will go to my grave, if necessary…
people are already organizing and hoarding supplies to perform abortions.
and even if roe v wade is overturned…it will still fall to the states to make it illegal….and unless its illegal for women to cross state lines to get abortions then it wont be too bad….but the idea of it is truly horrifying.
i think this country needs this to wake up the sleeping among us.
Missouri’s new TRAP law includes a provision that restricts the rights of Missourians regarding abortions performed in other states.
Planned Parenthood is mounting a challenge that, no matter its initial outcome, inevitably will be appealed all the way up the judicial food chain.
Let’s hope Cytotec Sam isn’t sitting on the bench when it hits the Supreme Court.
I knew the Bush administration wanted to take us back to McKinley, but now we have a chance to go all the way back to Buchanan and Pierce! I can imagine a ‘Fugitive Pregnant Mom Act’ requiring states to defecting mom’s back to their state of origin. Or better yet, a Dred Mom decision, in which a mom who moves ‘abroad’ and has an abortion, but years later returns to her state of origin is arrested for the abortion she had while residing in a ‘free’ state.
The possibilities are endless. Should make for some good high school history classes.
and even if roe v wade is overturned…it will still fall to the states to make it illegal.
I give these assholes 5 years tops before there’s a federal law banning all abortions.
I’d almost be surprised if it takes that long, but even if they don’t make it a federal law (can you imagine doing federal penitentiary time for seeking an abortion?) the states won’t be protecting us either.
With the states that already have anti-abortion laws on the books that were superceded by Roe out of the way, the antis will be able to focus their resources on the remaining states, and pick them off with TRAP laws the way they did in Missouri.
Either way, the end result is similar.
should be where we focus. Take a look at the number of votes actually involved in electing people to state legislatures. Take a look at those races that were close and see just how few vote changes it make a change. Progressives have spend way too long ignoring state and local elections — we gave them away to the right when we didn’t need to and we need to start paying attention again.
/*soapbox
“activist” judges states rights may not apply. I can see these dorks making up any kind of crap they want. Bush shows how far they will go – even to a stupid ill thought out war!
to disagree on this. I think that winning back state legislatures is the way to start winning back the country.
I think you are right. One of the things the Republican/rightwing party does well at is “feeding their young”. They have all these think tanks and colleges and senators and tv networks that provide internship opportunities for young fundies/Repugs to make connections on the way up. So they always have a fresh crop to replace the current wingnuts.
The Democrats, on the other hand, seem to have a habit of decimating any progressive candidates before they even get out of the box, and there have traditionally been few institutions where a progressive Democratic agenda is pursued or pushed forward to the public. I think they tend to be too concerned with maintaining the status quo of their own personal power.
Anyone else notice this?
Anyone else notice this?
What I notice is that republicans cultivate women. They fund and promote Concerned Women for America (who have to be sonme of the most stupid women on the planet) and the Independent Women’s Forum and support them in all things except in their occasional squeaks of objection to things like Fox new’s experiments in soft core porn.
The Democrats, OTOH, vary between indifference and outright hostility towards their (soon to be former) activist women and men like Kos constantly promote the most sexist attitudes and candidates imaginable as a sort of unattractive, distinctly conservative, rebellion. And the women the Democrats promote on several blogs and as pundits in the MSM aren’t exactly voices for the majority of (soon to be former) Democratic women voters and indeed appear to have managed to obtain their positions by agreeing with and enabling some unfortunate attitudes.
The Democratic Leadership suffers from Base Envy. They don’t want their base of Blacks, Women, Gays, Laborers and the poor…
The Democratic Leadership looks over their white picket ailse and see all those church going white people who all think alike and worship not only the same God but also the Gop… and they go back to the DLC and pray real hard if they could have them for a base not the multicultural mulit-issued based they feel they are burdened with.
Funny how the same folks who decry that issues and ideologies are supposedly hurting the Dem Party are more than happy to promote the issues and ideologies of the GOP base… makes you wonder why the fuck don’t they just cross over and leave the rest of us the hell alone.
the dems want to think that they don’t have to do anything to keep it.
I think this is related to CG’s comment — the dems think that any voter group they “own” is one that can be ignored. So there’s no need to actually make efforts to develop a presence among them and thus certainly no need to cultivate programs and institutions that would nurture them.
The Dems think that we girls are a given, that they can even play around with our civil rights as women and it doesn’t really matter because we have no where else to go. What the repubs are selling their women though is an idea of perfection that doesn’t exist. It all sounds great until you have to live it! If Roe goes, in ten years the women of the South will really know their place! Driving from California to Alabama will be like driving from France to Saudi Arabia in terms of who women are and the true happiness that they will have as their own.
This is one girl who is not given, I am earned, dammit.
Democrats, not in my lifetime, have not done a thing to earn my support. Individual fighter, yes, democrats as a party? No way. Not a bit.
I take a lot of shit from people for not being gung-ho democrat all the time, but I do not see them as being inherently able to stand up for me and what I see as important — all I have to go on is my experience of them for the past 39 years (the first 11 probably don’t count for much as my political consciousness was, well, 11 years old).
easterners and westerners are familiar with. When the plane moves into its position to land in Saudi-Occupied Arabia, or a short list of other countries where hijab is either required by law or intensely required by custom, where all the women reach for their various coverings, and within minutes, the head and face every female from early puberty to late great-grandmotherhood vanishes, covered in (usually black) cloth, regardless of the fact that she is about to disembark into a climate of 130 degrees.
Now I, or any number of people, could easily do a whole diary on the subject of hijab. And most of those women are putting it on because they want to, either because that is how they interpret scripture, or for cultural reasons, or simple courtesy of when in Rome.
But there are some on every plane who are not putting it on because they want to. They do not have the choice. They are putting it on because if they do not, they and/or their husbands, fathers, brothers sons will have problems. Problems even more serious and annoying than “being stared at.”
Sorry to digress. As I said, this could be a whole diary of its on. And would invariably lead to the “snarky” question of if US was so damn upset about the plight of women in Afghanistan, why did they give arms to only the men?
Please? I want to read that diary!
the dems think that any voter group they “own” is one that can be ignored
The last Presidential election pretty much exposed that particular notion as a spin/lie. Not that the Senate dems appear to have paid much attention…
John Kerry managed to almost entirely erase the gender gap and I’ve not heard one major or minor employed strategist even be willing to even address this established fact, much less be willing to seriously discuss it.
The Democrats appear to believe that the only women they need to attract are suburban white women adverse to conflict and chiefly concerned with environmental issues. Chuck Schumer needs to recognise that we’re really quite aware that he and his are willing to sell us out at the drop of a hat and that no amount of political theatre and posturing is going to change that awareness.
I’ve been thinking about that too–have we thought about our future when Roe is overturned by organizing, providing safe houses for women, etc.
Notice I said “when.” I truly believe that if Scalito gets on the SC, our already weakened right to an abortion will be non-existent.
if you have never done so, to imagine, as best you can, how it would be to live under constant threat of your body embarking on a process from which there is no escape save gestation and giving birth, or interrupting said process, at the very least, at the cost of considerable physical discomfort, and with the risk of serious illness, injury, or death.
I don’t think we are capable of truly comprehending this, but with a little effort, you should be able to get just a hint of the horror.
Women cannot run away from pregnancy. They cannot pretend they do not remember the encounter, they cannot employ magical thinking that it is not really so, not really theirs, changing their phone numbers or leaving town will not work. The pregnancy leaves town with them.
They can, if they have the money, buy their way out of it, but not as easily as men can. The money must be used to purchase a medical procedure, which they and only they can undergo.
If they do not have money, the effect on their lives, and the life of the child, can be devastating.
In the US especially, a man who impregnates a woman is considered to be taking care of his responsibilities if he sends money. It is not required that he go without sleep for the better part of a year, while maintaining whatever work he can get. He does not have to stagger out into the cold dawn to wait for a bus with the baby in his arms, or figure out how to haul baby, large box of diapers, case of formula and diaper bag onto that bus and through the streets.
It is not he who makes the call whether to forfeit the low wage job in order to take the baby to some grim waiting auditorium, to spend the day, baby in arms, in a hard plastic chair, in hopes of receiving some form of medical treatment, which more often than not, will include a prescription for a medicine that cannot be purchased without spending at least part of the rent money.
All that he needs to do is send maybe enough money to buy the diapers every week, and that’s it. He is said to be doing the right thing.
Over 90% of people living in poverty in US are mothers and their children in situations where the father has chosen not to make even that financial contribution.
Being a father is not, if the ladies will excuse me, depositing sperm. Sending a check does not make one a parent, and while it may be enough to satisfy one’s conscience, and more than society demands, it does not make one a parent. The parent is the lady standing there at the bus stop, in line at the food stamp office, trying to ignore the ache after nine hours in the hard plastic chair, it is she who cleans up the various effluvia of infancy, she who knows how much the rent is and how much she is short, and just how many boxes of diapers the check you sent purchased.
Now the society wishes to increase the burden placed on our sisters and our daughters, by denying them even the most rudimentary control over the most basic and primitive of biological processes of their own bodies. And that is the fundamental principle, their bodies are their own. Not the state’s. Not any man’s.
Oppression of women, keeping them shackled to the bonds of reproductive biology is the oldest and most effective method of social control known to man. It is also one of the most debilitating and harmful practices that any society can engage in, and while our sisters undeniably suffer most from it, our children also suffer, as do we. It impedes our progress as a species, and limits our own futures, again, not in the immediate and physical intensity as our sisters, but in a way, it may in the long run, damage us more, because it erodes our souls.
is make up a few dozen more usernames, just so I can log back on and give you half as as many 4’s for that as you ought to have.
impossible to live with all day. 😉
By the way, your Lilith/TEA diary is still on my blog, and not entirely due to my procrastination.
Choice for poor women has always been more about money than laws, and every drop in the bucket helps.
DT – I took the liberty to crosspost your comment over in a diary on ET. I hope you won’t mind. (Of course, if you do mind, tell me and I’ll take it down)
Please feel free to post it wherever you like. 🙂
just this past year with the emminent domain ruling.
I’ve said before that Democrats would do better to forget every minute of their party’s glory days and look instead to 3rd world popular movements for inspiration and instruction. Democrats, like any movement of the people, are in a 3rd world position, having the most powerful economy in history in opposition to their interests almost across the board.
I’m not at all informed about 3rd world politicking so I can’t make more specific suggestions other than to point to Howard Dean’s ideas about organizing, which are most compatible with powerless people who can’t access the public square.
The real fight will be keeping abortions legal in states that want to keep it legal. How long until these right-wing activist judges look to make the very practice illegal nation-wide….
How long until these right-wing activist judges look to make the very practice illegal nation-wide
Please don’t tell me your prediction is the best of all possible worlds, Doc!
You know, I used to think that any serious attack on abortion rights would sink the Republicans by alienating moderates. However, the events of the past few years I wonder if their hard-core supporters aren’t drinking so much kool-aid that they’ll stick with them through just about anything. I’m pretty sure that George Bush could pee on the Declaration of Independance and 35-40% of the public would say that Thomas Jefferson was on the side of the Islamofascists.
But on the bright side, if you’re well off, you can spend your Bush tax cut on a trip to Canada/Mexico/Europe and get a safe abortion!
Sadly I agree with you.
Those of us who are old enough to remember the days before Roe undoubtedly can tell some stories – our own, or someone’s we knew well – of motherhood too soon, of babies given up for adoption, of back alley abortions.
But your diary brings to mind other memories, of being a young hippie with a hippie “family.” We were very very poor. Voluntarily so, but still – NO money. We shopped at Goodwill or fished things out of the trash. We ate mostly beans and rice. We found cheap houses and shared the rent with 5 or 6 other people. For about six months, my boyfriend and I managed supper each night by scrounging around the bushes of a high school nearby for soft drink bottles and then returned them for the deposit money at the grocery store and bought whatever we could with the proceeds.
But we all had a money stash – just a little, usually, $5 or $10 or $20 – hidden away for emergencies. There were two circumstances where we’d dig it out and hand it over – someone needed bail, or someone needed an abortion. It never ceased to amaze me how we always managed to get our friends out of jail and we always managed to get someone to New Mexico (one of the few states with legal abortion)when we had to.
I hope it doesn’t come to that – but if it does, I hope we will always be able to come through for whoever needs it.
Yes, some of us are old enough to remember before Roe. Back then I worked waiting tables or as a motel maid…and money was given freely to those that needed bail or an abortion or just a bus ticket out of Utah to Nevada or California.
Now I’m in CA with a reasonable income….the money is here, the safe house is here, the bus and airline tickets can be purchased online.
Like you I hope it doesn’t come to that, but we’ll bring experience and be ready if it does.
Expect me to keep a “stash” and get Alabama girls to California if I have to. Such a dark, sad day this is for my daughter and all of her friends…..the women who will pay the price for this abuse done by these people!
I’m cattycorner to a Planned Parenthood clinic — not sure if they do abortions, but maybe I’d better pressure the spouse to get the new foldout couch for the living room just in case…
When I got pregnant at 19, my country had had legal abortion for several years, so I had a safe legal abortion in a hospital, fully paid for by my government health insurance.
When my mother got pregnant at 19, she and my then 21-year-old father “had to” get married. They concocted a face-saving lie that they had actually secretly gotten married down in the States, a year earlier. They kept their secret for 20 years, even from their children.When my mother finally told me about it, she was too ashamed to look me in the eye.
When my mother’s mother got pregnant as an unmarried teenager, in a strange city far from home, she gave her baby up for adoption. After she was married, after my mother was born, she had at least three back-alley abortions. My mother came home from school, when she was 13, to find her mother home sick in bed, in pain and bleeding. “You’re old enough to know about this, now,” her mother told her.
When my grandmother’s mother got pregnant, young and unmarried, she and her uncle went down to the States and got married. Later, they had the marriage annulled, and my great-grandmother married again. My grandmother didn’t know her stepfather wasn’t really her father, until she needed her birth certificate to get married. Was my great-grandmother’s uncle the baby’s father? Or did he marry his niece to save her from the disgrace of having a baby out of wedlock? We’ve never been able to find out the true story.
Three generations of women in my family, pregnant, unmarried, no access to safe legal abortion. And a legacy of pain, shame, lies, secrets and silence.
For me: A safe, legal, affordable, unstigmatized abortion, freedom from an unwanted pregnancy, freedom from unwanted early marriage, freedom from the pain and fear of the back alley, and a story I’m not afraid or ashamed to tell.
There can be no going back. Abortion must be legal.
I took the liberty to crosspost your comment over in a diary on ET. I hope you won’t mind. (Of course, if you do mind, tell me and I’ll take it down)
No, of course I don’t mind, Jerome. Thank you for thinking it was worth copying.
about how women should just shut up and vote for the DINOs:
i swear to god if any male democrat votes to confirm scalito i’m never voting democrat again.
as long as i live.
NEVER!
NOT AGAIN!
start looking out Green Party candidates running for office in your area.
The thing I plan to do is to spend more time on candidates for my state legislature. It’s become absolutely critical to get more progressive candidates into office.
I know I harp on this a lot but it’s the best — and easiest way — to combat the right. Well-organized groups can have a huge impact on local and state elections. Back in the 70’s we got the ERA passed in my red state not by changing the minds of the current legislators but by changing who those legislators were.
for “Salazar Alito”, just to see what turned up.
Do it and see all the right wing blogs who view him as a certain vote for Alito.
You mean you aren’t going to vote for Massa, Casey, Ryan, Kaine, Taylor, Langevin, Roemer, Reid, Salazar, Landrieu, Carson….? </snark>
Frankly, any politician who politicizes abortion for their own political gain can go to hell.
Have you seen how the Brady Bunch Blog Boyz have plastered Massa all over their so-called librul blogs…
And if you listen to Kos… these anti-choicers will actually protect women’s rights… sometime in the future if we vote for them… ya think they will also buy blogads???
Oh… but let’s listen to the Carville/Clinton cabal that sleep with Rove toadies … who surprisingly tells us that the path to winning is being like Republicans.
Let me hear Meteor Blades tell me again that I am being a “PURIST”…
Let me see Kos tear apart NARAL once more on his front page…
Let me see Harry Reid be an ineffective twat protecting his base… the GOP protects theirs…Dem Leaders just shit on ours
This is only can happen because of shithead Democrats like Casey, Ryan, Kaine and others Democrats for Life who have bought into this bullshit…
Our own party fucking sold us out…
He’s pro-choice. He’s not going to try to make abortion illegal. The issue has been kind of muddied during the campaign, but I stood there in person listening to him argue with a pro-life college student who thought all those bullshit restrictions on abortion clinics were a good idea. This was off-mike, just a conversation they were having. Tim Kaine isn’t the enemy on this one.
KAINE IS NOT PRO-CHOICE
Kaine is the typical Democrats for Lifer…
he wants fucking abstinece only classes and to federally fund these Crises Preganacy Centers shams…
He is the typical fuckhead who politicizes abortion for his own political gain… but supposedly Kaine is a tad better than the devil the GOP is running.
Tim Kaine opposes making abortion illegal. Yes, he calls himself pro-life. Actually the talking point is, “Tim Kaine has a faith-based oppostition to abortion.” Yes, he supports all that “reasonable restriction” bullcrap. But he’s definitely more than a tad better than a Republican candidate who has sworn he’ll sign a statewide ban on abortion the instant Roe goes.
Are you a woman? Do you live in Virginia? I am and I do. Do I wish Tim Kaine were more up front on this issue? Yeah. Do I wish he wouldn’t support all that parental notification crap? Hell yeah. But I sure know which one of these two I want as governor.
You said that Kaine is pro-choice he is NOT
I said “Kaine is a tad better than the devil the GOP is running.
Yes, I am a woman and no I do not live in Virginia….BUT…It is bullshit Democrats like Kaine who will give impetus to the boneheaded DLC notion that Democrats can only win if they politicize a women’s wombs while lip-syncing the Bible. Democratic candidates like Kaine hurts ALL women not just those who live in Virginia.
But I sure know which one of these two I want as governor.
That is the point… the Democratic leadership keeps forcing these crappy candidates on the base…leaving it with the choice of voting for the slightly “different” candidate.
Listen, the point I’m making is that a candidate who muddies the waters when he talks, but when it comes down to it, will not vote for or sign a bill that criminalizes abortion, is NOT the same thing as a candidate who legislatively supports criminalizing abortion. Okay? That’s what I meant when I said he’s pro-choice. He doesn’t support criminalizing abortion.
I agree with you that not coming right out and saying so, is bullshit.
But he’s not a crappy candidate. Did you know that he got his start as a civil rights lawyer, working on fair housing issues? Alright? He’s a Democrat for reasons that matter. He isn’t a Bob Casey.
Proof is in the pudding.
he got his start as a civil rights lawyer, working on fair housing issues?
Joe LIEberman marched with Martin Luther King…who is probably rolling over in his grave.
Kaine is the same as Kerry “No choice”. And now the GOP knows all it has to do is run the devil himself ….and the Democratics will run the Republican for them…
Whatever.
I think it would be instructive to take a look at the recent history of Iran. After the shah was overthrown a theocracy was installed which rolled back women’s rights.
Women took to the streets to protest, but were arrested, beaten and intimidated into compliance. Their sons and husbands did not stand up for them.
The result is a theocratic government with very poor economic development that has put the country back 100 years.
The illustrated novels of Marjane Satrapi about her experiences as a teenager during the period are quite revealing.
The movement for women’s and worker’s rights has been too ineffective over the past few decades. The time for real political action has arrived. What form this should take I don’t know, but letters to your congressman seem rather ineffective.
Damn straight real action is needed. Women marching, holding teach-in about the real goals of the anti-choicers (pro-life my ass). Lysistrada action if need be. Sympathetic doctors need to step to the fore and speak out. Underground connections – I’m just across from Detroit – need to be made. Burn the telephone lines up to your Senators, no matter what their party affiliation is, and to the Democratic National office. I was patched through to the “Chairman’s Office.” I told the woman who answered the phone that I wanted the Dems to act like a real opposition party and to pull those DINO’s into line.
Here’s a link to find your Senator’s phone number http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Here is the phone number for the Democratic National Office 202-863-8000
Heard on the radio on the way to work that Senator Boxer says “filibuster is on the table” and Feinstein has said that Roe is a deal breaker.
If you call….call Senator Boxer and say thanks. Call Feinstein and say you appreciate her support and want to make sure Alito and his anti-Roe stand doesn’t get appointed.
I dialing the phone right now.
The Dems should announce immediately that because there was a lack of prior consultation over the nomination the senate was denied it’s role to “advise”. As a consequence they are going to filibuster the nomination as a way to restore true senate “procedure”.
Having announced the filibuster up front they can then say there is no need for a sideshow of hearings and the distractions from the Plame affair and the Iraq war.
Bush can nominate someone who is more moderate and not chosen because of a religious test. He gets political cover as well. “I tried two righties, but I couldn’t get them through, so I had to choose a moderate.”
Going through the hearings motions is just playing into the Whitehouse plan of distracting people from the real issues. Cut to the chase.
(I don’t mean that I’m sorry that I’m not a lady, I mean that this thread is addressed to women primarily and I felt like commenting, even though I’m a dude…)
I think that if the issue that this troglodyte thinks that married women need a permission slip from their husbands to get medical treatment (no need to even press the abortion point) a whole lot of Republican-voting soccer moms are going to be VERY put off…
You’d hope so, wouldn’t you? But they’re more likely to say that in MY marriage we would talk about important issues like that and I think that’s a reasonable thing blah blah blah. It’s the same reason putting other women on a jury for a woman who killed her kids is dicey…because women are so judgemental of other women, especially when it’s in regards to something that’s basically a feminine thing.
Nevermind if the woman had an outside relationship and her husband would kill her if he knew she was pregnant. Nevermind if her husband is a mean drunk and she doesn’t want any more kids for him to beat. There’s any number of reasons why a woman would not be wise to tell her husband she’s planning to have an abortion.
I wonder how long it will be before women are mandated to take monthly supervised pregnancy tests and then be closely monitored for behaviors that would be detrimental to the pregnancy.
Republican-voting soccer moms, and been amazed that these seemingly bright women vote for whomever their husbands do. Occassionally, one will confess that she recently stopped voting Republican because she found their stance on important issues unpalatable (and that it was a source of many arguments with the husband!), but generally, they don’t care enough about who they vote for to bother to stir up trouble in their comfy little lives, I’m sad to say.
It makes me sick when I see how many young women jump on the “abandon Roe” bandwagon put forth by so many Dems these days, as if that makes them somehow more liberated and modern than those of us who realize what the end of Roe means for in terms of the position of women in society. If Roe is overturned, these young women are in for a very ugly surprise.
now! They don’t understand what they are giving up because they never knew what they had…..so many people here in the South take a daughter to go have the one abortion she will need when she is a teenager and still feel it ought to be illegal – they just got the one in that they would need and nobody will ever know about it. Women go get safe private abortions every single day and because pain and suffering were averted the need for such a thing isn’t fully realized by a lot of women. What a wake up call they all have coming their way!
Then it’s time to tell the stories backwards.
I went to school with a neighbor girl, a cheerleader who got pregnant from a zitty football player. She had an abortion and never told her parents. She went on to marry well, and succeed in a republican woman kind of way.
So do we start “outing” stories like this to parents, back across generations, to bring these difficult choices closer to home?
It sounds cruel, and I’m not sure I could do it. But I am mightily pissed today.
They would think to themselves that that is the past and we can do the future better. Never mind that basic human sexual needs have swelled our population to 6 Billion and we were only 4 Billion when I was a kid. Anyhow, we are going to bring these sexual needs under control…..rein them in…..they are evil and sinful anyhow and they are sorry about what happened before but it won’t be that way in the future…..dumbasses!
They always think that whatever is in front of their eyes at the moment is the same as whatever occurred in the past — they have no concept of how history has shaped this country. So the world that legal abortion has made is the way the world is and trying to get them to understand what making it illegal would do doesn’t resonate at all.
It’s the same kind of thinking that allows the grandchildren of immigrants to criticize current immigrants for living lives just like their grandparents did.
It’s the same kind of thinking that allows people to claim that there isn’t any racism in the circumstances and treatment of blacks in New Orleans as if there weren’t more than three hundred years of oppression and discrimination that went into creating that environment.
It’s the same kind of thinking that allows people to claim that market forces can cure anything if left alone as if we don’t have a history of harm, greed, and destruction by robber barons like Jim Fisks of the past and Bernie Ebbers of today.
Thank you for this:
They always think that whatever is in front of their eyes at the moment is the same as whatever occurred in the past — they have no concept of how history has shaped this country.
People with no sense of history have no idea how cause and effect WORKS. These people think we on the progressive, democratic left are out of our minds when we point out why a certain issue is important.
Which is why history classes sometimes turn out to be the most boring classes being taught in the United States today. They are lied to. Many know it. Others are being propagandized. It’s like sawdust being poured into their brains. Only after some kids are out of school or in college do they figure out what really is the deal.
It’s the same kind of thinking that allows people to claim that there isn’t any racism in the circumstances and treatment of blacks in New Orleans as if there weren’t more than three hundred years of oppression and discrimination that went into creating that environment.
Huh. You ain’t never lied. (BTW, yall, I will be talking about news from the Easy in the next few days. I have school work to catch up on.)
Regarding black and Latino poor women: If it is bad now, imagine how it is going to be later.
Reproduction rights for us has always been a physical, mental and economic health raison d’etre.
People with no sense of history have no idea how cause and effect WORKS. These people think we on the progressive, democratic left are out of our minds when we point out why a certain issue is important.
Yes, this is precisely where the complete lack of a frame of reference hurts so much.
I am thankful every day that I took several courses from subversive, socialist history prof in college in the early 70’s.
Despite the lack of horror stories, I really do think that young women get it.
Everybody gets it. Except the people in power. Look at this:
(source)
There is no age demographic that is in favor of placing further restrictions on abortion (though I’m a little worried about the young dudes).
It seems to me that making judgments that the majority of every single age group of Americans disagree with is a clear cut case of being ‘out of the mainstream’. Yes?
Tell you what, though, that 18-24 male age group has some…problems. I’ve been talking online to some of those anti-choice young men; the notion that they should in any way be responsible for what they do with their penises or for any child they are responsible for bringing into the world does not seem to have occured to them. That they managed to read nominal adulthood with such a set of attitudes appalls me.
hit 55? Is it because our uteruses don’t work anymore that we want to force all the other ones that do work to work whether they want to or not? Seems that sanity finds us again at 64, but what the heck?
In an ideal world, all families would be functional and loving, with modern, enlightened parents to whom their young daughters can come with any problem, secure that they will be supported and loved unconditionally.
However, in the reality-based world, no politician, nor his most ardent devotees, can know to what hell their notions would condemn a young girl whose childhood has, in the time it takes to fertilize an egg, evaporated.
I would also advise keeping a close eye on DV law and cases which will affect the spousal rape protections. I’m thinking there will be a LOT of Lysistratas out there and the loving Republican men will need to force them to submit themselves as the Good Book says…
for the democratic party if we lose our reproductive rights?
I don’t like the tone of this diary, in the sense that defeat has already happened.
The truth is, if this nominee goes through with democratic votes, women have every reason to boycott the democratic party. Yes , let’s plan for the worse. But there is still a battle to be fought now.
True- but with what weapons?
My Salazar backfires every time I try to use it.
My other weapons- the Musgrave and Allard- are fully in the grip of the enemy.
True, I have online petitions, but they are mere pinpricks on the Gulliver GOP.
And the liberal blogs? Our voice? The largest ones have spent the past 4 months valiently undermining women’s issues, choosing anti-women candidates and berating us for balking at their “sage” advice.
Yes, I’ll fight- but I’ll prepare for the future Bondad sees, because it is the most likely and I have a daughter to save.
the horror that Salazar has become. I so fully supported him and celebrated his win. I must call my Aunt immediately and tell her that my My Salazar backfires everytime I try to use it! My poor Aunt his Hispanic, I wonder that she wouldn’t like to chase him down the street whacking him with a broom all the way?
I am facing the prospect of replacing my Santorum with a Casey next year…and I think the larger liberal blog has been telling me that this is a great idea for me for aat least 7 months, if only I were “smart enough” to listen to the big boys.
If those are the names on the ballot next year, I’m not voting for either. How could I critiise people who vote Republican against their own interests, and then turn around and do the same to myself?
you’re own best weapon.
I’d like to see some of you come down here to New Orleans and fight the fight we are engaged in: scores of illegal and unethical evictions by the thousands; rent hiked to take advantage of the 70 to 75 percent depletion in the housing stock in this area. A rapidly and drastically rising homeless rate.
You have to see it here to believe it. In terms of political support, we have no one, no one to rely on. But we have each other, and, luckily, an infusion of young activists from commonground to help. We’ve accomplished quite a few things, including a legal eviction date delay in Orleans parish and a local judicial hearing place for those evictions, rather than 60 miles away.
and absolutely up against every form of denial and denigration.
Somebody’s god should take a moment and bless you, duranta and those working with you…
I read earlier of your work in the Iberville housing to register voters. Hard, often thankless work.
I agree, and I think, like most of us, I want to see the battle fought. I’d love to hear how more of the Democrats are reacting to this nomination as well as what some of the more moderate Republicans are thinking (ie Olympia Snowe).
I also would love to see more conversation that puts the anti-choice folks on the defensive with questions like:
There are many more where these came from. I think we need to start asking so that we can “out” just how neanderthal this kind of thinking is and the legal nightmare it would surely become.
we’re dealing with an unpopular president, and we’re counting on defeat of one of our basic rights.
The republican party is reeling from an unpopular war, unpopular policies, and we’re counting on losing a basic right.
Again, I challenge you, what is wrong with this picture.
A little aside: ‘ladies’ is a designation for polite women with manners. I’m a woman, not a lady, and I plan to lose my manners if need be over this issue. I would hope we all have similar plans in mind.
The only reason why motherfuckers didn’t come from my fingertips this morning is because Parker already had it up there for me.
I’ll be a sweet and nice lady when it works to get politicos elected that defend our rights.
I’m older and slightly gray…and it will be as a tough broad that will march and fight to protect our rights and our daughters and granddaughters.
See you in the trenches!
How do only get slightly gray though? I am gray as all get out now, Bush did it!
Nobody better tell me to just buck up and fight the good fight so we can valiently overcome the bad guys in a rousing finish.
That reeks of someone who tells women to “smile” so they feel better.
No amount of cheery female can-do-it-togetherness is going to help.
This is not like staying up all night to finish my kid’s halloween costume. We are not collecting money for school books or striving to get that pancake breakfast together.
I live in reality, not some rose-colored enablerland.
We are fucked.
Fucked
Fucked
Fucked
I’m going to fight because I’m backed into a corner. My bad mood and despair is my strength. I am going to make it and my daughter will make it- but only because of this molten desire to survive.
And that molten desire? It is going to vaporize saccharine.
and we may be fucked. Btw, I’m not asking you to smile and buck up; I’m asking you to tap that anger and fight, yes, fight for what you believe in.
Everyone who cares about reproductive rights ought to be on the Planned Parenthood email list. They’ve been fighting this fight, in an organized fashion, for some time now.
Women, as a group who support reproductive rights, have yet to really flex their political muscle. You all know your local, state and national political scene. You know who to target.
We also need good women running for office who are willing to challenge the status quo in a profound way.
I’m curious: anyone know whether code pink has tapped into this issue?
Yes, Bonddad, we’re aware of that. While reproductive rights will certainly be increasingly compromised, I wouldn’t limit problems to that area. We’re going to be having great problems with basic survival, access to the job market, health care and a considerable increase in both domestic and sexual violence and an exacerbated feminization of poverty. These are all entirely predictable consequences of the ‘faith-based’ demand for narrow gender roles and female subordination.
I’ve been considering lately what I would do if I were young or, worse yet, raising girl children. My sense is that I would be doing whatever I could to get out of the country, move to Europe, Canada, New Zealand or Australia. I’m not young so I’m staying here and fighting.
my right winger co-worker comes to visit me and I say, “How do you like that new nominee for Supreme Court, he thinks that it’s okay to strip search 10-year-old girls?” So she doesn’t believe me and I offer to e-mail her proof. Her resonse, “Just because something is in writing doesn’t mean it’s true”!!!!
They live in their own world….
I think we should develop a Jane Doe fund, to get women travel and medical care funds. There will be states with legal abortion. We need to get the women there who need the services.
Just the ladies need to plan for this?
I feel so, so, SPECIAL
that you would imply that it’s all up to Just Us Women!
Yes, I’m serious about this. You COULD have said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s time to plan for…”
But NO. You think the women need to get to work on this. While you men, what? Watch sports on TV?
I can’t tell you how disgusted the title of your diary makes me. And you men WONDER why it is women say that men are un-aware of our issues. You wonder why we’re cynical.
This isn’t a helpful diary — it’s an infuriating diary.
Beyond which, you think there’ a Dem woman who ISN’T aware of this?