reproductive rights

[Reflection on the Anniversary of Roe v. Wade]

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Yesterday was the fifty-second anniversary of the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade. On June 24, 2023, the Supreme  Court held in Dobbs that the “Constitution of the United States does not confer a right to abortion”, overruling Roe and Casey, and reversing forty-nine and thirty years, respectively of precedent, not only in law, but in women’s physical safety.

When I was born, Roe didn’t exist, but do you know what did? Women dying from blood loss, sepsis, and incompetent medical persons (I hesitate to use the word “professionals,” who either weren’t proficient in women’s reproductive health care or didn’t care and were only there to make a quick buck off the backs of desperate women and girls.

There is no such thing as banning abortion. Abortions have been happening since pregnancy; since the dawn of time, whether elective, medically necessary, and/or spontaneous (what is sometimes referred to as a miscarriage). I would suggest that Dobbs is a not-so-spontaneous abortion – a miscarriage of justice. A step away from women’s bodily autonomy. A step in the wrong direction. It should not be dismissed that in Alito’s opinion, he quotes Sir Matthew Hale, a long discredited abusive misogynist and witch trial judge, and someone excoriated in his own time (the 17th century).

When then-Senator Kamala Harris asked then-nominee Brett Kavanaugh if he could think of any law restricting a man’s medical decisions, he thought for a moment and said no. The moment he “thought” about it was performative. No one needs to think about the answer to that question: it is most definitely no, there has never been a law that restricts a man’s bodily autonomy.

Women have died.

Women are dying. Right now.

Women are being arrested for having a miscarriage, and that’s after attempting (more than once) to get medical care.

Women are being lied to about what is and isn’t physically possible. For example, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard politicians tell women that for an ectopic pregnancy, the fetus can be replanted in the uterus. This is NEVER the case.

Another example is the disgusting rhetoric surrounding “post-birth” abortion. There is NO SUCH THING! No one is killing babies in the maternity ward after they’re born. NO ONE. Who believes this nonsense?!

The biggest problem is that politicians are not doctors. They don’t know how women’s bodies work, and they prove that every time they open their mouths to debate and pass legislation against women, and let’s be clear – that is exactly what it is; it’s not anti-abortion or “pro-life,” it is anti-women and girls. Even the trans bigotry shows this. They don’t care about the safety of girls or the “sanctity” of girls’ sports.

If you don’t believe that, just look at the ignorance at the most recent executive order claiming that there are only two genders, but then in the same order requiring that people identify their gender as the one they had at conception. The new president (and his cronies) just made the male gender illegal since biologically we are all female at conception.

How many other laws are being passed that violate our rights because of the ignorance of right wing no-nothings?!

Abortion bans at six weeks when most women don’t know that they’re pregnant.

Heartbeat laws when there is no heart.

They want to ban abortion from the moment of conception.

Roe v. Wade saved women’s lives.

Dobbs is killing women.

It really is that simple.

And if you can’t see that, I ache for the future of such an ignorant world, and hope to all that is holy that my daughter’s generation is paying attention, and can reverse this misogyny which has been built into the fabric of our country from the beginning.

Election Connection – 12 Days

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We can do this!

We’re Not Going Back! (c)2024

In our house, we have a first time voter! We are very excited to have her vote for HER rights and who we hope will be the FIRST WOMAN President.

In 12 days, she, her father, and I will walk together into our polling place and watch her “pull the lever” for Democracy. She knows the issues; she knows what’s at stake, and she’s ready to add this civic duty to her growing list of growing up milestones, following graduation from high school, getting a driver’s license and buying herself a car, and working in her chosen field.

We are so proud of all of our kids who are choosing their ways through life, and we are proud that they all know that equal rights are for everyone, and civil rights are human rights.

Take the responsibility and the privilege and go out and vote on November 5, and let’s turn this country around.

BRING THE JOY!

Election Connection – NYS Prop 1

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19 Days

I belong to a group that is a religious based group. I get that I am on the outside of the norm for doctrine, for civil rights, and other issues, but for the most part we amicably disagree and I only correct factual errors. I have never, as far as I know, given my views on abortion. I do speak forcefully on trans rights.

So, here we are.

I was on a conference call last week when one of the members asked to make an announcement, and then proceeded to express a political ad in opposition to New York’s Proposition 1 that will appear on the ballet this Election Day, November 5, 2024.

An announcement would be something akin to informing what the proposition is and where to find more information to make your own judgment call. This was not the usual Catholic call to vote your conscience. This was an out and out vote no, and here’s why.

I listened anyway. I have an open mind, and I want to know where others are coming from. But when he began spewing misinformation, I blew a gasket. Silently, of course, we’re all muted, and I wasn’t going to call him out when 90% of the call would be against me, but I did hang up, and that is something that everyone on the call could hear.

I was really furious.

Yes, of course, vote your conscience, but learn the facts about an issue. Telling a captive audience that this bill is a “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” and making it about “girls’ sports” and of course, the behemoth single issue, abortion, I just can’t.

Proposition 1 is:

This is the complete text that you will see printed on your ballot.:

Adds anti-discrimination provisions to State Constitution. Covers ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, and sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity and pregnancy. Also covers reproductive healthcare and autonomy.

 [Italics mine.]

This is an official summary of the measure provided by your election administrator:

This proposal amends Article 1, Section 11 of the New York State Constitution. It prohibits any person, business, or organization, as well as state and local governments from discrimination pursuant to law. The current protections in the Constitution cover race, color, creed, and religion. The proposal will add ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, and sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy. The amendment allows laws to prevent or undo past discrimination.

 [Italics mine.]

Combatting Misinformation

Myth#1: This will increase abortions.

This will NOT increase abortions. This will save women’s lives. It will decrease the unnecessary deaths of women (look up Amber Thurman of Georgia). It will give everyone bodily autonomy and enable them to make their own medical (and other) decisions. Women are not second-class citizens. When Brett Kavanaugh was asked during his confirmation hearing if there were any laws restricting a man’s choices for his body, he could not name one. That’s because there are none. Equality is for everyone.

Reproductive rights include the decision of when and if to have a family, the use of fertility procedures and contraception. Bodily autonomy includes cancer treatments and vaccinations. Some contraception drugs are used for other ailments. Those decisions are between a patient and their doctor.

And don’t forget that more than a few Republican politicians including the candidate for VP, Senator Vance has said they will require girls and women to submit to a pregnancy test before they are allowed to travel across state lines.

Myth#2: Loss of Parental Rights due to anti-age discrimination laws

This is a ludicrous argument. Children will not be able to do whatever they want any more than they do now. Parents will still have a say in their children’s decisions. This is no way that will change that.

Your 5-Year-old still cannot get a tattoo. Your 15-year-old still cannot have breast enlargement (or reduction) surgery. Your 10-year-old cannot now drive a car. When you say these things, you sound stupid unless you’re just fear-mongering which frankly is worse.

Myth#3: Trans Rights will threaten girls’ sports

And while we’re on the subject, I mean, why no concern over boys’ sports?

Is it that we honestly don’t care? We certainly didn’t care when Michael Phelps won award after award, and no one batted an eye despite his “natural advantage,” something genetic, with which he was born. (Google it.)

Trans girls and women are not “men in dresses”. They are women and girls, and they deserve to spend their childhood playing the sports that they want to (just like the boys do).

Let me ask you a few questions:

Do you color your hair? Cut it? Wear nail polish? Makeup? Choose a style of eyeglasses? Do you shave your legs? Or face? Or go to the gym?

These are ALL examples of gender-affirming care.

For Catholics (which is the group on my conference call), there is nothing inherently anti-doctrinal about trans people, but there is and should be an issue when you are bigoted and when you misinform about who and what trans people are, and transness is.

You can call it freedom of speech, you can call it parental rights, you can call it protecting girls’ sports, but what it really is, is bigotry, plain and simple.

Saying everyone should be equal, and passing laws that do just that should be a positive thing; we should be striving towards equality for all, and not creating a caste system of second-class citizens.

Equality for all means EQUALITY. FOR. ALL.

I will be voting YES on Prop 1 in New York state, and I hope you will too.

Mourning

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I have come to realize that “pro-life” is a misnomer. The people who espouse it, who embrace it, who shout it from the rooftops, don’t actually know what it means. When I hear the phrase “pro-life” I’m supposed to think that the person shouting it believes in life. But they don’t believe in life when the life is gay, when the life is Black, when the life is an immigrant or someone who’s accented, when the life is poor or homeless or addicted to drugs. They don’t believe in life when they allow three people, three human beings, a mother and her two small children drown while watching, and actively stop help from getting to them. They don’t believe in life if they are killed by guns, which are more sacred to them than the life it takes. They claim to care about the life of people who aren’t people yet, still unborn, still getting their life from their host woman, but if that woman dies because she can’t receive a lifesaving abortion, well, that’s life. But it’s not pro-life.

They lie about the services at Planned Parenthood.

They lie about the activities inside “crisis pregnancy centers.”

They lie about women’s* bodies or they simply don’t understand how women’s bodies work, which should be the first clue that they shouldn’t be legislating on women’s bodies.

I’ve seen legislators who don’t understand the basics of puberty or menstruation or how babies are conceived, thinking that the only party is the woman who holds the responsibility for her actions and the future of three people.

They sound pathetic and stupid, and it’s embarrassing.

On this anniversary of the now reversed Roe v. Wade, I’m in mourning. I’m in mourning for what pro-life people did to Roe, the person: manipulating, gaslighting, and abandoning. I’m in mourning for my daughter. I’m in mourning for her friends. I mourn for the residents of Texas and Florida especially.

The only pro-life option is safe and legal abortions for anyone who needs one.

Why is there upset and indignation when the “pro-life” set is called pro-birth or forced birth, but what else are they if not that? No one comes to pray outside of social services or the WIC offices for the children once they are born. No one prays outside of counseling centers, real counseling centers for victims of sexual assault and incest. The only prayers are for doctor’s offices and clinics that offer full service reproductive health services. Why is that?

How can you be anti-abortion and pro-death penalty?

How can you be pro-war?

Things to think about because your hypocrisy is showing, and it has been for a very long time. With the Dobbs ruling, women are dying, women are being prosecuted and persecuted for having miscarriages, women are being denied life-saving care, women are left to die of sepsis, are left to infertility, and families are just left.

*When I say women, read: all child-bearing people.

Election Connection – Women’s Rights Today

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Today marks 134 days before the next Election Day, and 500 days until the next Presidential Election Day. It seems like a very far time away, but it really isn’t. It will be here before we know it. It is also not too early to become familiar with your local elections and issues happening that will be addressed on the next two Election Days.

Our voting numbers in this country are abysmal. I know we want to represent freedom, and you should have the freedom to decide whether or not you want to vote. However, that should come with a dreading realization that with your one vote, you can change how things are done in this country. Look at Michigan. I am personally for a national day off for voting and automatic registration at 18 as well as requiring all those eligible to vote. We are still using a Presidential election system built on slavery and proportioning electoral college votes on land rather than on people.

How does this affect women’s rights, the presumptive focus of this missive?

Continue reading

Election Connection – Abortion Access

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It’s important to remember that one of the things left out of the abortion access discussion is that it is a freedom of religion issue. Banning abortion violates the tenets of some religions. It is also important to remind people that despite declarations of the opposite, this is not a Christian nation. It is not founded as a Christian nation, and many of us need to be reminded of that. More often it seems.

In fact, in the Treaty of Tripoli, signed in 1796 and ratified by the United States Senate in 1797, UNANIMOUSLY and without debate under the Presidency of John Adams stated that explicitly:

“…the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”

Article 11, Treaty of Tripoli, rat. 1797

The below article was posted in USA Today on February 13, 2023. It is written by Christine Fernando and can be read here:

‘It’s time for us to be Bold’: Why Six Religious Leaders are Fighting to Expand Abortion Access

The six leaders highlighted in the article are:

  • Rev. Cindy Bumb of United Church of Christ
  • Rabbi Susan Talve of Central Reform Congregation
  • Jamie L. Manson, president of Catholics for Choice
  • Sheila Katz, CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women
  • Aliza Kazmi, co-executive director at HEART
  • Katey Zeh, Baptist minister and CEO of Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice

Roe v. Wade Today

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Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that gave women the right to an abortion. More specifically, and importantly, they found the right to an abortion under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment that we all have a fundamental “right to privacy”. Any laws that prohibited an abortion would be subject to strict scrutiny by the Courts.

Much has been made of the plaintiff, Roe expressing her regrets for her abortion. She had gone back and forth on this issue, and honestly I feel that she was taken advantage of by both sides. She was paid by the right to recant her wish for an abortion, and stated in the 2020 documentary, AKA Jane Roe that she hadn’t ever supported the antiabortion movement.

Roe’s holding was reaffirmed in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in 1992 while at the same time overruling the trimester framework established in the Roe decision and moved from “strict scrutiny” to “undue burden”.

In 2022, the Supreme Court overruled Roe with their ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that the right to an abortion was not “deeply rooted in the Nation’s history or tradition.”

This is false, and it is simply Justice Alito (and his cohorts) grasping at straws and making law whole cloth from their beliefs which violate the Constitution as well as basic human rights of women to their own bodily autonomy. In the ruling, they also included questioning rights now recognized as to contraception, interracial marriage, and marriage equality (same-sex marriage). Some on the right are suggesting we take another look at those rights already enshrined in law (and common sense, to be quite honest).

Abortions have been happening for as long as there’s been pregnancy. The real value of legal abortion is safety. When abortions are illegal, women are less safe. In addition, many, if not all of the proponents of eliminating legal abortion have no idea how pregnancy and birth works. They throw out terms that they don’t understand, pass laws, and criminalize medical care for women under the guise of stopping abortion.

Since Dobbs, women have died from miscarriages that weren’t treated; ectopic pregnancies that were left to fester. Women have lost the ability to have more children because of doctors waiting for the last minute to help women, afraid that anything they do to save the woman will create a liability for themselves and their facilities.

The right set up pregnancy centers who lie to women and scare them and do not give them all of their options as far as family planning and abortion. If their way is the right way, why do they need to lie?

This is horrifying, and it needs to end.

Women need to be able to make informed decisions on their family planning, their pregnancies, their terminating or continuing of pregnancies. My daughter has less rights than her grandmother had.

In addition to our activism and raising our voices, we need to contact our Congresspeople and especially Leader Jeffries, and have them bring a bill to the floor and pass it to make the Supreme Court more modern. The last time the Supreme Court was changed with respect to number of justices was with the Judiciary Act of 1869 during the Grant Administration. We currently have nine justices and thirteen circuit courts. We should have 13 justices to correspond to the circuits. For those saying that this is packing the Court, it is unpacking the Court that Mitch McConnell gave us by blocking President Obama’s duly chosen nominee in 2019 and then reversing his “logic” and pushing through Amy Coney Barrett while we were in the middle of an election. Literally while voting was happening.

We can’t stop speaking out.

The only way we can solve this disparity and reproductive health crisis is by reinstating Roe, expanding it, and codifying it into law.

Election Connection – 85 Days and Counting

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Wednesday marks eight-five days until Election Day – the all important mid-term elections.

A few things happened today that I want you to be aware of as we head into these mid-term elections. (Unfortunately, I do not have links, but this are easy to google.)

First, thanks to a commited Democratic party, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which goes a long way to meet our climate goals as well as reducing the deficit whlie providing help to families.

Second, the FDA is making hearing aids available over the counter (probably by mid-October). This is crucial, and not just to people on Medicare. I have been using hearing aids since I was 52. It should have been longer than that but we weren’t able to afford it. To get them, I had to see my primary doctor, an ENT specialist, have an MRI, get signed off by the ENT, then go to a hearing aid place to be fitted with hearing aids. The aids themselves were over $5000 without the doctor’s visits and the MRI. We were “lucky” because that year my son was in the hospital and so we reached our deductible in March rather than at the end of December (like usual) and a close relative died.

Third, a 16 year old in Florida has been told in a ruling by a court that she cannot have an abortion. The reason? She is not mature enough to make that kind of life altering decision. But raising a baby, she’s mature enough for that? GTFOH.

Fourth, Liz Cheney lost her primary to a MAGA lunatic, and I’m being somewhat generous by using the term lunatic. Look her up. I’m not a Cheney fan, but at least she’s not part of the conspiracy theorists. She has been an admirable Vice-Chair for the Jan. 6 committee, and perhaps Chairman Benny Thompson can include her as part of the legal staff or committee spokesperson after she can no longer serve in January.

These four examples are only four of the very many reasons that everyone needs to vote in the Election on November 8th. Vote all the traitors, Q-anons, and corrupt Republicans out of office. Vote Blue.

We have the opportunity to turn things around. It will take time, more time than we’d like, but it will happen if everyone buckles up and does their part. Democracy is at stake. Our futures and the futures of our children are at stake.

Visit Vote Save America for ways to help your candidate and Democracy Docket.

Mental Health Monday, Delayed

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First, a note about Press Freedom Day, which is today. Election Connection – Press Freedom Day will appear tomorrow. Mental Health Monday seemed to be more essential to post this morning.

Mental Health Awareness Month began on Sunday, a day that for most of us gives us some breathing room from the rest of the week. I am aware, however, of the many people who don’t get Sunday off and work in jobs that are so haphazard that they need second supplemental jobs and barely have time off from work. It’s important to recognize them and acknowledge and assist their mental health struggles.

I had intended to write something for publication yesterday, but after the shocking news of the Supreme Court leaked document, an Alito written draft overturning Roe v. Wade, I couldn’t sit down and write about mental health solutions when my mental health was on the verge of cracking.

All over my social media, I’ve seen women angry, upset, frightened. I won’t be getting pregnant again, and I feel the same way. I described it on Facebook as FURIOUS. I don’t have enough adjectives to describe the feelings and these feelings have been growing exponentially since November 8, 2016. It may sound melodramatic to say but that was a day of mourning in our house. We walked around with shadows across our faces, our eyes unfocused, muddling through the subsequent days; going through the motions. It felt very familiar, much like we acted during 9/11. We had also been mourning the sudden death of my mother in law, so that may have played a role in how deep our depression went.

The overturning of Roe v. Wade is a several faceted quandary. As I saw described on Twitter, the Republicans are the dog who caught the car. Now what will they run on? They’ve won the one thing they claimed they wanted. For Democrats, will this be demoralizing or will this energize us? Will we continue to be held hostage by apathy and the Manchin/Sinema power plays and/or the Collins/Murkowski concern Olympics complete with pearl-clutching and ‘oh mys’ with or without fainting spells?

And I know that some of you are wondering what this has to do with mental health?

A lot, in fact.

For women, this is a dark day. Some remember the days of back alley abortions. Are we merely chattel in a man’s world? Don’t we have the ability, the intelligence, the know-how to be able to know the best for our own bodies and mental health? The men passing the laws (and voting to overturn our constitutional rights) don’t even understand the biology of when a fetus is viable, when it is a new life, what a heart that holds a heartbeat is, or the difference between ectopic pregnancies, viable pregnancies, and high/low risk pregnancies.

They trust us to raise these children born, often alone and with no resources, but somehow we can’t be trusted to decide that the pregnancy should go forward as if our bodies are merely incubators.

No one suggests sterilizing men, who can create fetuses several by the day where as a woman can only bring one pregnancy to term a year.

I think we should have a general woman’s strike where all women stay home, and women who work at home or are homemakers or stay-at-home moms take the day off. Show the men that without women, things stop. I’d hazard to guess that everything stops.

Where does mental health fit in?

First, take care of yourself. If social media is too much with too many angry, dystopian posts, get off for a bit. Hours, or even days. You don’t have to be a part of that circus while it’s so raw for you.

Second, be aware of the amount of posting and news that will revolve around abortions, reproductive rights, the undermining of women’s rights and equality. Give yourself a trigger warning before you engage with social media and even some family members and friends.

Third, give yourself time to mourn. Spend quiet time. Have a cup of tea, knowing that the cup of tea will not cure this crisis, but it will give you some time to sit, relax, reflect, and simply do nothing for a little while.

Fourth, when you’re ready, plan how to combat this assault on our persons. We are the ones with heartbeats, and they will listen to us. We will make them listen.

Fifth, as part of doing something productive: if you have the money, some good places to donate are: