Reminder: "Bans Off Our Bodies" Marches Tomorrow

 

(Reposted)

Tomorrow, Planned Parenthood, Women's March and several other organizations are spearheading marches across the country to send the message to the Republican Supreme Court, Republican Federal and state legislators, and uterus- tracking Christofascists in general:  "Bans Off Our Bodies!"  Here's a PP link to go to sign up for events in your area.  You can also sign their petition, which reads:

Our bodies are our own — if they are not, we cannot be truly free or equal. Across the country, some politicians are trying to make decisions about our bodies for us. We won't let the abortion bans sweeping the country put our lives and futures at risk, and we won't be silenced while our fundamental right to control our bodies is taken away.

Everyone deserves health care that's free of shame, stigma, or judgment. Together, we say: Get your bans off our bodies!

It should go without saying, but here it is anyway:  Men, this is your fight, too!  Get involved!

Dessicated Republican arsonist and SCOTUS destroyer Sen. "Moscow Mitch" McConnell said the quiet part loud recently when he signaled that the end of Roe v. Wade would allow Federal legislation to be passed banning abortions nationwide.  As long as we have a Democratic President and, even better, control of at least one chamber of Congress, that won't happen.  To do this, we need to mobilize not just this Saturday, but every day through the November midterms and beyond to make sure such a radical national policy is never passed, and that over the longer term we can have a SCOTUS that will represent American values and respect our privacy and freedoms.

"Bans Off" Marches, May 14

 

On May 14 (this Saturday), Planned Parenthood, Women's March and several other organizations are spearheading marches across the country to send the message to the Republican Supreme Court, Republican Federal and state legislators, and uterus- tracking Christofascists in general:  "Bans Off Our Bodies!"  Here's a PP link to go to sign up for events in your area.  You can also sign their petition, which reads:

Our bodies are our own — if they are not, we cannot be truly free or equal. Across the country, some politicians are trying to make decisions about our bodies for us. We won't let the abortion bans sweeping the country put our lives and futures at risk, and we won't be silenced while our fundamental right to control our bodies is taken away.

Everyone deserves health care that's free of shame, stigma, or judgment. Together, we say: Get your bans off our bodies!

It should go without saying, but here it is anyway:  Men, this is your fight, too!

Dessicated Republican arsonist and SCOTUS destroyer Sen. "Moscow Mitch" McConnell said the quiet part loud recently when he signaled that the end of Roe v. Wade would allow Federal legislation to be passed banning abortions nationwide.  As long as we have a Democratic President and, even better, control of at least one chamber of Congress, that won't happen.  To do this, we need to mobilize not just this Saturday, but every day through the November midterms and beyond to make sure such a radical national policy is never passed, and that over the longer term we can have a SCOTUS that will represent American values and respect our privacy and freedom of choice.

QOTD -- There May Be No Sanctuary

 

“If the leaked opinion became the final opinion, legislative bodies — not only at the state level, but at the federal level — certainly could legislate in that area.” --  withered Republican Senate Minority Leader "Moscow Mitch" McConnell (Arsonist-KY), presaging what is likely to happen should the Christofascist Republican cult take the House and Senate in this year's midterm elections -- a federal law banning or further restricting access to abortions.  Those are the stakes -- a more draconian situation than even existed pre- Roe.  Democrats need to be loud, clear and persistent in framing that. 

QOTD -- The Republican Taliban's Uterus Trackers

 

"In March, anticipating the very decision that Alito drafted, a Missouri lawmaker introduced an amendment that copies Texas’s bounty-hunter law to allow private citizens to sue people who help abortion patients leave the state. In recent years, thousands of Missourians have already been crossing the border to Illinois for abortions, many more than have been able to be seen by the state’s last remaining clinic. The provision didn’t succeed this time around, but its author, state Representative Mary Elizabeth Coleman, wasn’t wrong when she responded to claims the provision was unconstitutional by telling the Washington Post, 'That’s what they said about the Texas law, and every bill passed to protect the unborn for the last 49 years.' It’s only unconstitutional until you get the right court.  [snip]

It’s an open question how abortion travel could be restricted, given the porousness of state borders, but Missouri provided a hint when its state health director testified in the fall of 2019 that he’d compiled a spreadsheet of Planned Parenthood patients’ last menstrual periods, purportedly to track whether they had complications. Such detailed tracking of pregnancies has been used in countries like China and Poland to track if women are defying restrictions on whether and when they can be pregnant or not." -- Irin Carmon, in New York Magazine, on the lengths some Republican theocrats are prepared to go to control the uteri of women, even as women cross a state line to get safe and legal abortions.  "Privacy"? "Personal freedom"?  Don't you know those apply only to straight, White, Republican males?  You know, the Republican Taliban.

BONUS:  In his draft decision overturning Roe v. Wade, Alito cited a curious, but revealing, source of inspiration.

"Out Of Touch People In Crazy Outfits Pretending It's 1895"

 

Stephen Colbert has some thoughts on the SCROTUM SCOTUS radical draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, and on the lying liars involved:

QOTD -- Illegitimate SCOTUS

 

"...This draft opinion, whatever may be done to it in the days to come, is Exhibit A for anyone who believed that time or history or respect for their colleagues or the justices who came before them would moderate the five justices in this current majority, a majority that ought to know it stole its way into a majority but again refuses to even feign self-moderation in the face of that fact. We knew this when Texas’ S.B. 8 law banning abortion after six weeks was decided on the shadow docket in September, and when the court let it stand again this winter. We knew it when we watched the Dobbs arguments last fall. Roe had already been effectively overturned then—we have just had trouble catching up.  [snip]

"The court will surely suffer for this shattering self-own to its own legitimacy. But the rule of law and the public will suffer as well. The three Republican-appointed justices who authored the plurality opinion in Casey knew very well what would happen to the court if it disregarded and disparaged the American public, the Constitution, and itself. Be afraid for what’s coming next in terms of personal autonomy and liberty, for LGBTQ protections and the right to contraception, yes. But be equally afraid for the abstraction of an independent and principled judiciary. No matter what happens next, that’s already lost." -- Dahlia Lithwick in Slate.

Reactions To The Leaked SCOTUS Opinion Ending Roe

The shocking leaked opinion overturning Roe v Wade, authored by ultra- reactionary Samuel Alito, has provided a cold dose of reality to anyone believing this day would never come.  The reactions have been, and will continue to be, fierce:

President Biden:

... [I]f the Court does overturn Roe, it will fall on our nation’s elected officials at all levels of government to protect a woman’s right to choose. And it will fall on voters to elect pro-choice officials this November.  At the federal level, we will need more pro-choice Senators and a pro-choice majority in the House to adopt legislation that codifies Roe, which I will work to pass and sign into law.

Pelosi and Schumer:

If the report is accurate, the Supreme Court is poised to inflict the greatest restriction of rights in the past fifty years — not just on women but on all Americans.

The Republican-appointed Justices’ reported votes to overturn Roe v. Wade would go down as an abomination, one of the worst and most damaging decisions in modern history.

Several of these conservative Justices, who are in no way accountable to the American people, have lied to the U.S. Senate, ripped up the Constitution and defiled both precedent and the Supreme Court’s reputation — all at the expense of tens of millions of women who could soon be stripped of their bodily autonomy and the constitutional rights they’ve relied on for half a century.

The party of Lincoln and Eisenhower has now completely devolved into the party of Trump. Every Republican Senator who supported Senator McConnell and voted for Trump Justices pretending that this day would never come will now have to explain themselves to the American people.

The Democratic National Committee:

The Supreme Court has upheld precedent and protected access to abortion for decades. Now, due to extremist Republicans and conservative justices on the court, Roe could be overturned. We will fight back. Republicans must answer for their relentless attacks on Americans’ rights.

Laurence Tribe:

If the Alito opinion savaging Roe and Casey ends up being the Opinion of the Court, it will unravel many basic rights beyond abortion and will go further than returning the issue to the states: It will enable a GOP Congress to enact a nationwide ban on abortion and contraception.

NARAL:

Today’s shocking and unprecedented leak follows multiple other signals that the Supreme Court is poised to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade case that recognized the constitutional right to abortion. Meanwhile, abortion care is already almost entirely out of reach in Texas because a vigilante-enforced law banning abortion as early as six weeks of pregnancy rendered Roe meaningless in the state. Other states are clamoring to follow Texas’ lead even before the Supreme Court announces its opinion in the Jackson Women’s Health case.

Should Roe fall, 28 states are poised to take action to prohibit abortion outright. Of those, 13 states already have “trigger bans” in place, which would ban abortion automatically if Roe is overturned. These bans and attacks on abortion access fall hardest on those most marginalized, including people of color, LGBTQ people, people with low incomes, and those in rural communities.

Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY):

"I refuse to let my new granddaughter have to fight for the rights that generations have fought for & won, rights that she should be guaranteed... For anyone who needs access to care, our state will welcome you with open arms. Abortion will always be safe & accessible in New York." 

Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI):

"Our work to defend access to reproductive healthcare has never been more important. Before I became governor, I promised I'd fight to protect access to abortion and reproductive rights. I've kept that promise, and I will fight every day as long as I'm governor."

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI):

"Our work is more important than ever. I'll fight like hell to protect abortion access in Michigan."

Dana Milbank:

Republicans have been stoking the culture wars with all manner of fabricated threats from “critical race theory” and trans kids in sports and bathrooms. But the assault on women’s rights is very real, both in the swift moves to ban abortion and in the dismissal of sexual misconduct allegations as mere tactics of a woke “political establishment.”  [snip]

Instead of playing into the talons of the opposition, let’s make sure every voter knows what these toxic turkeys are up to as they shrug off sexual assault and push for a nationwide abortion ban: They are vitiating a half-century of progress for women.

Paul Campos:

The hypocrisy of the Furious Five in regard to the issue of democratic legitimacy is something to behold. The overwhelming majority of the public supports legal abortion in most circumstances — to the Great Unwashed the question of whether Roe should have been overruled and the question of whether abortion should be legal is of course the same question — but in a few weeks abortion is going to be illegal in much of the United States because it’s a Republic Not a Democracy. What that means in practice is that a distinct minority of religious fanatics, white supremacists, and super fans of the patriarchy (but I repeat myself) will get to make abortion illegal, despite an overwhelming national consensus against doing so, because our political system is set up to empower those people far beyond what power they would have in anything resembling an actual democracy.

Susie Madrak:

In between his paeans to beer, Brett Kavanaugh repeatedly told senators during his 2018 nomination hearing that women’s right to an abortion has been affirmed.

“The Supreme Court has recognized the right to an abortion since the 1973 Roe v. Wade case — has affirmed it many times,” he told Lindsey Graham.

Kavanaugh stressed to Dianne Feinstein “the importance of the precedent” under the previous court rulings and a “woman has a constitutional right to obtain an abortion before viability.” He said plainly that Roe was "settled law." 

Benjamin Dreyer:

Presumably Justice Kavanaugh will insist that when he told Susan Collins that Roe was settled law he was shitfaced.

 

Here we go again:  elections, at every level, matter -- never more so than now.  This is what happens when a corrupt, anti- democracy Republican leader steals a Supreme Court seat and a one- term Malignant Loser proceeds to fill 3 vacancies with ultra- reactionaries willing to end any rights that they deem to be "not guided by the history and tradition" of America (think 19th Century America).

The Republican War On Women: Racing To Nullify Roe

Encouraged by a presumed decision by the fascist Catholic majority on the Supreme Court, Republican states are racing to nullify Roe v Wade:

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Thursday signed into law a ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, severely restricting access to the procedure in a state that has long been a refuge for women from across the South.

The new law, which takes effect on July 1, is modeled after a similar abortion ban in Mississippi that the U.S. Supreme Court appears poised to uphold. It contains exceptions only in cases where an abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother or prevent serious injury or if the fetus has a fatal abnormality.

The new Florida law is the latest in a cascade of restrictive abortion legislation proposed in Republican-led states. On Wednesday, lawmakers in Kentucky overturned the governor’s veto of a measure restricting abortions after 15 weeks and prohibiting providers from offering abortions until they can meet certain requirements.

And on Tuesday, Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma signed legislation making it a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, to perform an abortion in the state.

The bill’s enactment came after Oklahoma became a haven for Texans seeking abortions after Texas enacted a ban on most procedures last fall, the most far-reaching abortion restrictions to go into effect since the Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade.

A number of other states, all controlled by Republicans (read: right- wing white men), are also in the process of passing similar laws that would effectively end a woman's right to a safe and (until now) legal abortion.  Until recently, one could argue that the energy on the issue has been with the anti- abortion crowd.  But polling is revealing that it's now an issue that motivates Democrats more than Republicans.  From FiveThirtyEight:

Abortion has long motivated Republicans as a political issue. But following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in early September not to block Texas’s new law banning most abortions once an ultrasound can detect cardiac activity, usually about six weeks into a pregnancy, many have argued that Democrats may become more motivated by reproductive rights. As one Republican pollster recently told the Associated Press, “It is going to be a very motivating issue for women who haven’t typically been single-issue pro-choice voters.”

Tracking data from The Economist/YouGov seems to support this viewpoint. In each weekly survey since February, respondents were asked about the importance of abortion, and as we see in the chart below, the issue has become increasingly more important to Democrats and less important to Republicans ever since.

There's a simple reason for this: when people lose a significant right, they're more likely to take notice and take action.  There's hardly a right more significant than a woman's control of her reproductive freedom.

Now it's up to Democrats not to wait until the Republican SCOTUS issues its decision in the Mississippi case, but to start mobilizing newly energized voters to fight back and get to the polls in November and beyond.

(Photo: The Republican paradise/ Jim LoScalzo/EPA/AAP)

The "Odious Brave New World" Of The "Right-To-Lifers"

The Washington Post's Monica Hesse addresses yesterday's "March for Life" crowd, whose ranks were mostly filled by evangelical and Catholic high school and college students, serving as pawns:

I hope you’re ready for your odious brave new world. I presume each and every one of you is planning to adopt several kids. Those chia seed-size embryos that you insist on calling pre-born children eventually will be born to parents who never wanted to be parents, and someone will need to step up to the plate. Since “adoption” has been your solution, you’re up, slugger. Surely you can spare the extra $233,000 that the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2015 estimated it takes to raise a child from birth to age 18. (If the cost sounds steep, one of your crisis pregnancy centers might be willing to toss in a box of Huggies.)

I hope that the 364 days you’re not attending this march, you’re marching for universal health care. Also, subsidized day care and universal preschool; I hope every Chick-fil-A sandwich will now come with a side of full-time nanny.

Also, if your feet aren’t too tired, maybe you could mix in some marches for mandated parental leave for both mothers and fathers, and for free therapy for all of the people whose bodies and souls have been traumatized via forced pregnancy and forced birth.

At the very least, I hope we can count on you to vote for candidates who care about these issues with the same righteousness you brought to supporting pro-life politicians.

Of course, the vast majority of these cosseted, clueless spawn of Jerry Falwell and Pope John Paul II will never have to worry about making any tough decisions akin to those that would need to be made by the pregnant teens and women who are without the options in life that the marchers have.  In a country where 70 percent of adults don't want to overturn Roe v Wade, the organized Republican fringe has succeeded in placing a supermajority of anti- choice Republican justices on the Supreme Court, who are poised to effectively end safe access to abortions as early as June.

As Hesse concludes:

But once you have this thing you always wanted — state-sanctioned control over women’s bodies — your work is not finished. You are responsible for the pregnant people whose futures you have changed, and for their future children, and both are going to need a lot more than your prayers.

We all know that's a call that will fall on the deaf ears of these thoughtless pawns.

(Photo:  screenshot of Archdiocese of Miami student participants in the March for Life rally 2022 - no, we'll opt not to do a priest pedo comment/ Church of the Little Flower)

Texas To Virtually Ban Abortions Under New Law

With a 6 - 3 right-wing majority on the Supreme Court that shows hostility to women's reproductive rights, Republican pols and their reactionary and misogynist Christofascist base are pushing hard to render Roe v. Wade null and void. Last Monday, the SCOTUS decided to take up Mississippi's restrictive abortion law case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, in their next session in October, sending the clear signal that Roe was on the table.

Yesterday, Texas' extremist Trumpist Gov. Greg "Abbadabba" Abbott, who botched his response to the disastrous failure of Texas' electric grid this winter, signed a bill that would prohibit abortions past the 6th week of pregnancy, even in cases of rape and incest. The vast majority of women don't realize their pregnant at that stage, so it's effectively a ban on all abortions. It's been pointed out that the bill is a nightmarish attack on victims of sexual assault, who would have virtually no time to react to terminate a pregnancy in that situation.

While Texas' so-called "heartbeat law" doesn't take effect until September, and is being challenged vigorously by pro-choice organizations, it's a serious threat to reproductive rights that will undoubtedly be the template for other right-wing Republican-led states, emboldened by the current Supreme Court makeup. 

(photo: Abbott -- All hat, no cattle, and no concern for women's rights. Kevin Jairaj / USA Today Sports)