CREDIT: sebk/iStock.
There’s an interesting article at Think Progress, demonstrating that the majority of Americans favour pro-choice.
Recent research from the Pew Research Center indicates that 69 percent of Americans — or 7 in 10 — say Roe v. Wade should not be completely overturned. This represents a 6-point increase in the number of individuals who expressed this sentiment just a few years ago.
It’s unfortunate, to say the least, that coinciding with this change is the illegal election which has placed every manner of fanatic into high office.
During the campaign, Trump promised to ban abortion, punish women who got abortions and doctors who perform them, and appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. What’s more, his cabinet picks read like the Who’s Who of anti-abortion zealots.
Our elected officials are now at complete odds with what the American public wants when it comes to abortion.
It’s fairly clear that what the majority of Americans want is not of import; it’s what the minority want which will rule the day. The attempt to de-fund Planned Parenthood is still on, and one of the very first things gutted from ACA was contraceptive coverage, because of course if you want to lessen the amount of terminations, eliminating access to contraception is the way to go. Fucking idiots.
Continuing in this vein, for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been reading about an attempt to pass a federal heartbeat bill. Mostly, this story has been covered by Right Wing Watch. Not anymore! The lunatics are running the asylum, and the federal heartbeat bill is a reality. A vicious one.
Rep. Steve King (R-IA) Thursday introduced a bill that would implement a nationwide abortion ban, modeling it after the “heartbeat bills” already found unconstitutional in federal court.
Under HR 490, an abortion provider who performs an abortion without “determining … whether the fetus has a detectable heartbeat,” “informing the mother of the results of that determination,: or “after determining … that the fetus has a detectable heartbeat,” will face fines and up to five years in federal prison.
In a press release, King called Roe v. Wade “unconstitutional,” arguing, “lives have been ended by the abortion industry, all with a rubber stamp by the federal government.”
“Human life, beginning at the moment of conception, is sacred in all of its forms and today, I introduced a bill that will protect the lives of voiceless innocents,” he said.
“America was founded on the concept that our rights come from God…” the press release continues. “I believe our most important responsibility that God has bestowed upon us is to protect innocent human life, and I will continue to dedicate my life to that responsibility.”
King worked with anti-choice activist Janet Porter on the bill.
This isn’t a war on women. It’s an obliteration. It’s a refusal to accept women as full human beings, who are capable of making their own decisions. Sort of an alternate version of The Handmaid’s Tale. This will, of course, impact just as hard on some transgender men. This is also an insistence on forcing a specific religious belief, which is against the constitution, but these so-called lovers of the constitution don’t give a flying fuck about that, oh no. They are finally in a position to drop the bomb of misogynistic control on our heads, and they can’t wait to do it. Who cares if women end up dead? Small price to pay as far as they are concerned.
“I gave him a packet and he has agreed to introduce a federal Heartbeat Bill, which would protect every baby whose heartbeat can be detected,” Porter told Rewire in an interview. “That will actually end abortion in nearly every case. Ninety to 95 percent of the abortions will be ended with that bill.”
And you don’t give one little shit about all the lives which would be negatively impacted, either. As long as you get to be smug about stomping all over other women.
Via Raw Story.
I hope the heartbeat of those fetuses remains as undetectable as that of Steve King.
Ninety to 95 percent of the abortions will be ended with that bill.
Maybe Porter is dumb/naive enough to believe this, so I won’t call it a lie -- but it’s clearly untrue.
As most Latin American nations now demonstrate, banning abortion simply drives it into the back alleys while leaving the actual rate about the same.
In our time, the “back alley” into which Porter, King, & Co. want to push women consists mostly of illegal-drug pushers, whom we can count on to further exploit their new market in creative ways. Thanks, Porter!
Pierce:
Which is why I mentioned the lack of caring about women ending up dead. Terminating pregnancies has a history as old as we are, and it will not stop. Terminations will still take place, and if this legislation goes through, women will start to die again.
a federal Heartbeat Bill, which would protect every baby whose heartbeat can be detected
Smart of him to specify “baby” otherwise we’d be able to go abort Dick Cheney.
Caine@#3:
Terminating pregnancies has a history as old as we are, and it will not stop. Terminations will still take place, and if this legislation goes through, women will start to die again.
I have been pondering the idea of obtaining a large amount of RU-486 in some country where it’s easy and legal to do so, then setting up a website and network with “mules” so that you could request a dose and get it in the mail, anonymously. The only problem I can think of is that some people wouldn’t ask for it in advance of when they need it. I’ve been telling all the young women I know to get the OTC version while they can, and set it aside in case they or a sister need it. I know it’s not a perfect solution, but it’s a start. In the meantime I continue to donate to Planned Parenthood.
Marcus, that wouldn’t be unlike the Jane Collective back in the day. Underground railroads, they never go out of style. Miso (misoprostol) is already widely available at black markets all over the states, although it’s easiest to obtain in border states. That said, care is still needed, even when inducing an abortion chemically. This is why the rethugs are so damn loathsome -- they do not give one tiny shit if things go wrong, or someone has a bad reaction, or it didn’t work right, or they took too much, or anything else. They are just *fine* with the sluts dying, and they know the odds of a woman, especially a young one, showing up at hospital is unlikely, because they don’t want to admit what they did, given that such legislation is accompanied by criminal charges.
This is from 2012 but, just like Handmaid’s Tale, far too accurate in its predictive capacity -- though I suppose waay back in 2012, some things were already obvious.
In any case. That sacredness of life, oddly, always seems to end outside of the womb, most especially for those missing a bright pinky-white penis.
Caine@#6:
That said, care is still needed, even when inducing an abortion chemically.
Yeah. I read about that a while back. Had a friend who’s sister got pregnant during a mutually drunken one-night stand and was trying to figure out what to do. Being a christian, she dithered until it was too late to safely get rid of it with RU-486. Now she has an unwanted child being raised by its crazed fundamentalist grandparents… It’s sobering.
I’d forgotten about the Jane Collective. Interesting. I am going to ask around; I know some people who could/would fund this kind of thing out of their pocket change. The funniest part is I also have some tenuous contacts with some of the cybercrime gangs that sell illegal pills online. I wonder if they’d be willing to outsource … It’d be too fun to do that, and pay for it with credit cards stolen from republican donors, which would also be very easy to arrange. Arrgh! I hate being a “good guy” -- being on the other side is so much more liberating.
What happens with an ectopic pregnancy?
Marcus:
Yeah, I was one of those, because at the time of my birth, all abortion was still back alley and quite dangerous. I got the gift of being unwanted, despised, dumped off on people who regarded me as a “duty and obligation”, and ended up with years of hellish abuse. The kid has all my sympathy.
Gobi:
Well, if you end up in a Catholic hospital, you die, because abortion bad.
Seriosly? I mean… I was kind of expecting that answer, but…
Nice to know I can still be shocked I guess.
But it is OK to withhold medical treatment from a child and pray instead? Right?
Just readjusting my moral fucking compass…
Gobi:
Yes. It’s perfectly okay in the con’s mind to murder your kid, god’s will and all that, plus religious freeeedom! The whole sanctimonious “all life is sacred” is an outright lie, and a big ol’ mountain of stenchy shit. Republicans don’t give a shit about life, unless you’re talking about controlling it. Punishing sluts is paramount, of course, and to these evil assholes, any woman who is not dutifully submitting to a man in procreative duties is a slut. That’s why they took immediate action to kill off access to contraceptives through healthcare.
It’s been said a million times before, but if these evil scum actually cared about life, they would wholly support comprehensive sex education, increase education opportunities for all people, but especially girls, and make contraception access easy and affordable. In no time at all, you’d see very low termination numbers, and a serious drop in unwanted children. People having children would actually want them, and in the long run, you have a much more stable society. That’s been shown to be the case, but in spite of that, religious nutbags all over the place simply cannot cope without controlling and punishing a large segment of any population.
Also noted, over and over again: these blastocyst lovers are almost always in favour of capital punishment; a great many of them are in favour of prosecuting any woman who has a pregnancy terminated, and tossing her in prison; they favour cutting any program which goes to help children, whether that help is social, hunger-based, or education based. They aren’t particularly bothered by adults who beat children. These people hate life with a special fervor. The only thing which makes them happy is the power with which to oppress, torture, and grind people down, passing judgment and finding everyone wanting.
They have no place in the 21st century, yet here we are.
I think that it’s a play on “fetal heartbeat” but I keep seeing “feral heartbeat”
There’s an organization called Women on the Web which mails abortion pills to women who need them in regressive nations. Here are a couple of articles from the BBC on them.
So the job of government is to protect the “Life” portion of “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as long as it’s a fetus that we’re talking about. Once that baby is breathing on its own, the GOP turns around and says “Where does it say that the government has any responsibility towards the health and safety of its citizens?”
A lot of wise old granny types kept a lot of seemingly innocuous knowledge alive and well all these years. When I was younger, I’d wondered why there were so many plants native to North America that I was told were used to “bring on menstruation.” Eventually I wised up. I don’t want that wise old granny knowledge to still be needed, but I’m sure glad it’s been passed on to me now.
These are terrifying times.
Recently conservatives tried to pass total abortion ban in Poland. Women went en masse on strike, state-wide.
I think that something similar is needed in USA. I actually think that USA is reeling towards civil war.
NO need to remake The Handmaid’s Tale, just wait a year and you can make the documentary.
Seriously, if all those things turn out as they are planning right now, the USA will spiral down like nothing. No sex ed, no contraception, no abortion, no health care. Massive debt because of a useless wall, trade wars with the rest of the world.
Says the asshole who just voted to gut the ACA.
As Caine notes in 14, it’s not really like they care about, it’s control.
Fucking fuckers. It’s a good thing 1) I don’t own any firearms, and 2) I don’t live anywhere near DC…..