They’re Coming for Contraception Next

After Alabama’s recent IVF ban and the ongoing debate over abortion and mifepristone, the conversation has shifted. Conservatives aren’t just going for abortion. They won’t stop until all our rights under the 14th amendment (marriage equality, contraception, and more) are gone, too.

RepubliCON (BEST OF …This One Bears Repeating!) | Christopher Titus | Armageddon Update

An older one, but still spot on. Hugs. Scottie

Israeli whistleblowers detail abuse of Palestinians in shadowy detention center

A CNN investigation has uncovered the horrors of a shadowy detention facility where Palestinian prisoners are blindfolded, handcuffed and forced to wear dirty diapers. Watch Matthew Chance’s full report.

We all have that little girl’s bloodstains on our fingers

Last Week in the Name of God …

I thank Ten Bears for this. When I first heard of it I couldn’t find anything to post. Then when I saw Ten Bears’ post, I was too tired and stunned to post it. So I waited until I could deal with it. Just like the food workers in the WCK clearly marked trucks with the Israeli military giving the OK for their route, the rescue people here had permission to go to the girl, then they were killed. The reports from hospitals in Gaza witnesses said the IDF were targeting anyone in scrubs, the workers and medical people avoided being near a window and changed clothing before leaving the building. Israel’s goal has long been the extermination of all Palestinians and any support group for them. Any Palestinian male over 10 is considered Hamas by Israeli troops. Finally Biden is doing something, but it is far too little and long too late. Too late for all the dead Palestinian adults and all the dead Palestinian children. I watched an Israeli spokesperson angrily complaining no one seemed to care about the 100+ soldiers they lost in this war, but he had no remorse for the more than 40,000 dead civilian Palestinians, claiming that there have been very few civil casualties, that they were all Hamas or civilian combatants. Hugs. Scottie

Louisiana moves to make abortion pills ‘controlled dangerous substances

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/05/13/abortion-pills-louisiana-controlled-substance/

You can not give into to these fundamentalist people. They see any attempt to compromise with them as a chance to take even more rights away. They are driven to return the country to a distant past where women had little to no rights. A time when women were not even allowed a credit card in their own name, they had to have their husband or father’s permission or co-sign major purchases. Doctors would talk to the husband about the wife’s medical problems instead of the woman. They crave a return to when it was legal for a man to rape his wife, forcer her to please him sexually against her will. The really see women as only house keepers, child birthing, child raising, and sex objects to please men. Women are not people to them, women do not equal men in their world. Sad. But also these states no have the idea that because the president is a democrat their state doesn’t have to follow the laws and rules the administation makes. Nope they have decided that red states are superior and above the federal government. Never mind the constitution claims otherwise, these are republicans who claim to love the constitution yet violate it at will. Hugs. Scottie

Someone possessing the pills without a valid prescription or outside of professional practice could be prosecuted and sentenced to prison.

By Emily Wax-Thibodeaux

May 13, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

Mifepristone is one of the two drugs prescribed for medication abortions. Louisiana lawmakers are moving to put it, along with misoprostol, in the same category of drugs as opioids and depressants. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty images

Louisiana could become the first state in the country to categorize mifepristone and misoprostol — the drugs used to induce an abortion — as controlled dangerous substances, threatening incarceration and fines if an individual possesses the pills without a valid prescription or outside of professional practice.

Legislators in Baton Rouge added the provision as a last-minute amendment to a Senate bill that would criminalize an abortion if someone gives a pregnant woman the pills without her consent, a scenario of “coerced criminal abortion” that nearly occurred with one senator’s sister.

A pregnant woman obtaining the two drugs “for her own consumption” would not be at risk of prosecution. But, with the exception of a health-care practitioner, a person helping her get the pills would be.

Louisiana already bans both medication and surgical abortions except to save a patient’s life or because a pregnancy is “medically futile.” Lawmakers just rejected adding exceptions for teenagers under 17 who become pregnant through rape or incest.

The amendment would list mifepristone and misoprostol under the state’s Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Law, which regulates depressants, opioids and other drugs that can be highly addictive. It elicited a strong reaction from more than 240 Louisiana doctors, who called it “not scientifically based.”

“Adding a safe, medically indicated drug for miscarriage management … creates the false perception that these are dangerous drugs that require additional regulation,” they wrote in a letter sent last week to the bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. Thomas Pressly. They noted misoprostol’s other critical uses, including to prevent gastrointestinal ulcers and to aid in labor and delivery.

“Given its historically poor maternal health outcomes, Louisiana should prioritize safe and evidence-based care for pregnant women,” they urged.

The amendment, written with guidance from Louisiana Right to Life, was added after the Senate unanimously passed S.B. 276 in mid-April. The measure is awaiting a final vote in the House before the session ends June 3, with little opposition expected.

“As Senator Pressly has stated, the medical community regularly uses controlled substances in a myriad of medical situations, including emergencies,” said Sarah Zagorski, communications director for the antiabortion organization. “The use of these drugs for legitimate health-care needs will still be available, just like all other controlled substances are still available for legitimate uses.”

The pending language appears to open yet another front in the country’s bitter battle over if and how women can obtain an abortion. Attempts to curtail medication abortions — which now constitute more than half of all abortions in the United States — are part of legislative agendas not just in deep-red Louisiana but in many Republican-controlled statehouses. And in March, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case brought against the Food and Drug Administration by a group of antiabortion doctors seeking to limit access to mifepristone.

Pressly did not respond to repeated requests for comment, but in a statement released by his office, he explained that he was seeking to “control the rampant illegal distribution of abortion-inducing drugs” in Louisiana. He said abortion medication “is frequently abused and is a risk to the health of citizens.” By including the drugs on the controlled-substances list, he added, “we will assist law enforcement in protecting vulnerable women and unborn babies.”

His connection to the issue is in part personal. During public testimony in April before the Senate Judiciary Committee, his sister recounted how her then-husband surreptitiously gave her an abortion drug in 2022 when he brought her breakfast for St. Patrick’s Day. They were separated, but Catherine Pressly Herringsaid she had learned she was pregnant with their third child and he had agreed to marriage counseling.

After she noticed him serving her “cloudy water,” she said she started having “intense cramping.” Doctors were able to stop the process so that the pregnancy could continue. He was sentenced to 180 days in jail. Under Pressly’s bill, a perpetrator would face a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $75,000 fine.

“Through our knowledge of other stories, and from the testimony of local centers in Louisiana caring for women in these situations, the abuse of abortion pills is not isolated to Herring’s situation,” Zagorski said Saturday. “It is very simple for a man to pose as a woman to order these pills online without a prescription, even for a minor, and then to pressure a woman to take the pills.”

While doctors say Herring’s experience is deeply troubling, they remain concerned that her brother’s proposed solution would make mifepristone and misoprostol even harder for Louisianans to get for reasons having nothing to do with abortion. Misoprostol is prescribed for treatment after a miscarriage, for example, and to help stop postpartum hemorrhage, one of the leading causes of maternal mortality in the state.

“To OB/GYNs, this is very worrisome,” said Neelima Sukhavasi, an OB/GYN in Baton Rouge and a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health. “There’s no one that would endorse what happened to his sister. But this is a safe medication that has many important lifesaving uses. It’s not addictive.”

Misoprostol is also taken to soften the cervix during labor, biopsies for cancer and placement of IUDs. Sukhavasi said she is concerned that Pressly wrote the amendment without consulting physicians or enforcement agencies.

Nimra Chowdhry, senior state legislative counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, echoed those concerns but in harsher terms. She accused abortion opponents in Louisiana of misrepresenting the safety and efficacy of the two drugs — a manipulation “in pursuit of blocking people from care.”

This ultimately “turns back the clock on modern medicine,” she said.

Abby Ledoux, vice president of communications at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, is worried about the “far-reaching” consequences because of the drugs’ other uses.

There are “real questions,” she said, “about what it would mean in practice to open the controlled-substances list like this, including what aspects of state law legislators think manufacturers would follow, even locally.”

————————————————————————————–

By Emily Wax-Thibodeaux

Emily Wax-Thibodeaux is a National staff writer who covers national news, with a focus on gender issues and social movements for the America desk. She is an award-winning former foreign correspondent who covered Africa and India for nearly a decade. Twitter

Some changes long past time due

As the title suggests I am making some changes to the way I deal with blogs I enjoy, comments, and email. I have always signed on, quickly looked at the bell notifications, then got enough read / answered that if more poured in I wouldn’t miss too much. Then I would do other things like email. Often during this time or if I was not well I lost everything in the bell notification as it only allowed so many. I was constantly missing comments, which in truth is more important to me than other things online. Not sure why it has taken me to come to this change, except that if I am comfortable with something, I am the perfect frog in the pot of the hot water. Now the water is hot enough I am forced to jump out of it.

I love the blogs I follow, and I hate being rushed in reading them. But comments on my blog have to come first. I love them, I adore them, I am willing to put in the extra effort for them. I do not want to miss any more of them. So here is the change.

What I did this afternoon works for me. I had to do some other things and when I signed back on I was pissed that all my caught up stuff was no longer caught up, and I lost stuff. What did I lose? I don’t know, that is what bothers me. So I went to the top of the bell and worked down finding every comment and replying. Then when I got all them answered I went back to the top of the bell and got the new comments.

Going forward when I get up and sign on, start all my systems, I will start at the bottom of the bell notifications looking for comments. I will move up the list replying to comments. Then I will check my email and answer that, something I have not really done since … well at least a decade ago. Then I will go back to the bell notification and start reading all the grand blogs from the people I enjoy hearing their thoughts and leaving my own on. During this I will go back to the top to check for comments. If during this your blog drops off the bell notification list I am really sorry, I do love reading your blogs, but the list has gotten too long, my health is not well, and I just get too upset not keeping up. To the point I keep hundreds of open tabs, I think the count right now I keep open is near 500. I doubt I will ever get to them, answer them, or post them … some are news articles I wanted to post, but I save them with a hope. I will be going through them catching the comment left two or three months ago, then delete the windows. I just looked I am keeping tabs of blogs or comments from 3 months ago hoping to somehow get to them. It is past time to stop pushing and punishing myself. Ron is at his wits end on this. I set my alarm and got up at 3 am to start today. Yes I have to take breaks, and go lay down, I can only sit for five or ten minutes at a time, so I am up and down and laying down up at the desk, standing walking, sitting, going back to bed … I am exhausted and my health is failing, and Ron says one of the reasons is I feel driven by the stuff online. I just am recovering from a stomach virus causing me to vomit all day yet when I could sit I was at the computer. When my body drives me to bed I do it from my phone and tablet. I read news and post it. I put a keyboard on my old tablet to answer comments from there. It is not the best but it works.

So I am sorry if I miss your blogs. I am sorry if you post something really grand I think needs to be shared. I have to back off. I have to set priorities. I have gotten myself into a rut, pushing far past what my medications can hold until I am in tears trying to deal with stuff. I fall asleep at my desk after telling Ron I am going to bed. Then we argue about it.

Anyway everyone gets the point, I am just flogging the dead horse and making my self out to be a martyr at this point. That is not the case. Sorry if I give that impression, but reading over this I feel I have. None of what I do is anyone else’s fault. I do it because I enjoy it and love it. These computers are my ability to move outside the walls of my home, to connect with a larger world. I am addicted to it. But like any addiction it is hurting me, so I need to curb it. For example right now I just got up and walked around the kitchen because my right hip, the first hip I had replaced back in 2004 is burning, hurting, killing me so badly I am having to finish this sitting sideways. What people don’t know is that how I do a lot of my online posts and comments. I do a few minutes, get up and move, do more, go lay down, take more medications, get back to the computer. Ron says my exercise regiment is how much I have to keep moving to help the pain in my hips and back.

So let us all hope this gives me the chance to answer any comments without missing them. Please keep them coming, I love hearing other peoples thoughts and ideas. Plus as Ron says there is a bit of argumentive streak in me from the time I spent soaked in the bile and vitreol of the adotptive family. Hugs. Loves to all. Best wishes to those who understandably don’t want to be hugged I was there once myself. Scottie

The Barber Who Shaves His Clients’ ⚽⚽ | Secret Services | Channel 4

In fitting in with today’s theme of the human body is great, good, and need only be covered when cold, I offer a video on manscaping. Many people will ask what is that. It is the removal of body hair from men. Some men don’t like the look or feel of body hair. Plus some people have such a large pubic bush you can’t find their penis. I don’t like a lot of body hair because the man who adopted me and his kids were abusing me, he had lots and they were growing body hair. Since I started on testosterone I started seriously growing body hair everywhere. I look like a walking fur mat, like Chewbacca. I hate it. Ron shaves what I can not reach.

You ask where did I first learn of cutting your armpit and public hair. When I was doing work a special forces reservist training weeks. I got an award for it. I was sitting there listening to these big rugged hairy southern and midwestern men talking about removing their body hair. I timidly asked why. They explained that one thing they are taught is to not smoke, bath with scented soaps, wear deodorant or basically do anything to cause an odor when on missions. That included cutting body hair especially armpit, butt hair, and the pubic hair because they hold and create odor. I started doing it and have all my life. If you have stinky pits, try removing the hair. One thing, if you are not use to being defurred, then don’t take it all the way off, leave a very thin layer as when you shave it tight it can itch growing back. That said I can now keep my pits and crotch totally clear with no grow back itch, I guess my body grew use to it. I imagine women who shave all the time have the same thing. Great video, they blur the man parts out sadly. But the guy still had a nice body. Hugs. Scottie,

Sometimes you need a tidy up down below too… Rodney is a barber by day, but by night he’s a manscaper – and he’s tidied up the hair down below of over 200 clients to date. This is Secret Services – a series exploring alternative ways in which young people are making money.

Sweden’s parliament passes a law to make it easier for young people to legally change their gender

https://apnews.com/article/sweden-vote-legal-gender-law-minimum-age-9cfb3c6879ae03c3187f520eed308377

One of the anti-trans haters go to things is that the European countries are reversing themselves on pro-trans beliefs. It is all selective misinformation and ideologically driven attempts to deny the progress in medical science / understanding over nearly 50 years. Their goal is to roll society back to when the LGBTQ+ had no representation nor equality. It is entirely to create the idea that trans kids / people and their best medical practice is wrong and shouldn’t be. But this article again shows they are incorrect. Just so those who are denying the progressive trend for trans rights in the European countries, a quote is below. Hugs. Scottie

Elias Fjellander, chairman of the organization’s youth branch, said it would make life better for its members. “Going forward, we are pushing to strengthen gender-affirming care, to introduce a third legal gender and to ban conversion attempts,” Fjellander said in a statement.

Last Friday, German lawmakers approved similar legislation, making it easier for transgender, intersex and nonbinary people to change their name and gender in official records directly at registry offices.

A view of the Swedish Parliament as lawmakers vote on the new gender identity law, in Stockholm, Wednesday, April 17, 2024. The Swedish parliament passed a law Wednesday lowering the age required for people to legally change their gender from 18 to 16. Young people under 18 will still need approval from a guardian, a doctor, and the National Board of Health and Welfare. The government of Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has been split on the issue.(Jessica Gow/TT News Agency via AP)

BY JAN M. OLSEN

Updated 12:17 PM EDT, April 17, 2024

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — The Swedish parliament passed a law Wednesday lowering the age required for people to legally change their gender from 18 to 16. Those under 18 still need approval from a guardian, a doctor and the National Board of Health and Welfare.

No longer required is a gender dysphoria diagnosis, defined by medical professionals as psychological distress experienced by those whose gender expression does not match their gender identity.

Sweden joins a number of countries with similar laws including Denmark, Norway, Finland and Spain.

The vote in Sweden passed 234-94 with 21 lawmakers absent, following a debate that lasted for nearly six hours.

Sweden Democrats, the populist party with far-right roots that supports the government in parliament but is not part of the government, opposed the law.

Jimmie Akesson, leader of the Sweden Democrats, told reporters it was “deplorable that a proposal that clearly lacks the support of the population is so lightly voted through.”

But Johan Hultberg with the Moderates of Sweden’s conservative prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, called the outcome “gratifying.” Hultberg called it “a cautious but important reform for a vulnerable group. I’m glad we’re done with it.”

Kristersson’s center-right coalition had been split on the issue, with the Moderates and the Liberals largely supporting the law while the small Christian Democrats were against it.

Peter Sidlund Ponkala, chairman of the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex Rights, known by its Swedish acronym RFSL, called the law’s passage “a step in the right direction” and “a recognition for everyone who has been waiting for decades for a new law.”

Elias Fjellander, chairman of the organization’s youth branch, said it would make life better for its members. “Going forward, we are pushing to strengthen gender-affirming care, to introduce a third legal gender and to ban conversion attempts,” Fjellander said in a statement.

Last Friday, German lawmakers approved similar legislation, making it easier for transgender, intersex and nonbinary people to change their name and gender in official records directly at registry offices.

In the U.K., the Scottish parliament in 2022 passed a bill allowing people aged 16 or older to change their gender designation on identity documents by self-declaration. It was vetoed by the British government, a decision that Scotland’s highest civil court upheld in December. The legislation set Scotland apart from the rest of the U.K., where the minimum age is 18 and a medical diagnosis is required.

Trump Aide Promises Ban on Pornography in 2nd Trump Term

https://www.meidastouch.com/news/trump-aide-promises-ban-on-pornography-in-2nd-trump-term

Why oh why are these people so scared of sex? Did they fail to get any as teenagers? Still failing to get some? Sad. Then somewhere I read it was all about increasing the white baby count while stopping any brown people from coming into the country. See I guess the plan is banning abortion, ban contraception, ban porn to keep males super horny with pent up need … causes early marriage and kids. Doubt it, see Utah. But it gets worse. These guys want to deny women the right to vote and ban divorce making them dependent on men again. Hugs. Scottie

Project 2025 operative John McEntee also supports abolishing the 19th Amendment

Troy Matthews

21 hours ago

Former Trump aide John McEntee promised a ban on pornography was coming in the United States in a recent interview with Daily Wire host Michael Knowles. McEntee had a senior position in the Trump White House and is a key contributor to the infamous Project 2025, a collection of policy proposals

to transition the United States to Christian nationalist authoritarianism in the first 180 days of Trump’s second term.

“You bring up the elephant in the room,” McEntee told Knowles, “which is a stain on not only society but the entire dating culture as well, which is pornography. Whenever America bans that, which will be happening at some point, everyone will be much better off.”

The Project 2025 plan specifically lists a ban on pornography stating, “[Pornography] is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned.”

“The minute that goes away, this country will flourish,” McEntee told Knowles.

McEntee was Donald Trump’s former personal aide but was fired from the White House over a gambling debt issue that prevented him access to a security clearance. Trump hired McEntee back in 2020 and made him director of the White House Personnel Office.

In that role, McEntee was instrumental in drawing up the policy proposal for Trump’s immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan right after Biden won the 2020 election in order to throw the early days of Biden’s term into chaos. McEntee’s plan was not implemented, and Biden withdrew troops from Afghanistan in August of 2021.

After leaving the White House, McEntee received seed money from billionaire tech investor, and Trump supporter, Peter Thiel to create a dating app for conservatives called “The Right Stuff.” McEntee subsequently gained a large following on social media promoting the dating app with short videos reciting pithy MAGA talking points while out at restaurants.

In the interview with Knowles, McEntee, now the CEO of a dating app, also said he was “rethinking the 19th Amendment,” which gave women the right to vote, after being shown a TikTok video about feminism.