You can bet the state will go after, and try to go after the out of state doctors / facilities that help her. Plus the republican fundamentalist die hard anti-abortions will sue for their mandatory 10,000 dollars regardless of what that would do to the family and her other two children. Plus the way the law is written all court costs and lawyer fees are paid by the person getting sued even if they win, which is the reverse of how all other lawsuits go, the loser normally pays if they start the lawsuit. This is totally about control over a woman, her body, and her sexual life. This treats woman little different from breeding stock. It was done to black women to get more slaves babies. Ask why when the baby can not survive, and it endangers the health, life, and ability of the woman to have more kids, do these people still insist she carry it to birth? Do they think that god will do a miracle and have the baby healed as soon as it is born? Do they think the doctors are lying? That a woman that wants more children is lying to abort one? Hugs. Scottie
Dec 11 (Reuters) – The Texas Supreme Court on Monday overturned a lower court’s ruling that would have allowed a pregnant woman to get an emergency abortion under the medical exception for the state’s near-total abortion ban, granting a petition by Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton.
The unanimous ruling from the Texas Supreme Court came hours after lawyers for the woman, Kate Cox, said in a court filing that she had left the state to obtain the abortion, but nonetheless wanted to pursue the case. Cox has said her fetus had a fatal diagnosis and that her health was at risk if she continued the pregnancy to term, including her ability to have more children in the future.
The high court, whose nine justices are all Republicans, said in its unsigned opinion that a “good faith belief” by Damla Karsan, a doctor who sought to perform the abortion and sued alongside Cox, that the procedure was medically necessary was not enough to qualify for the state’s exception.
Instead, the court said, Karsan would need to determine in her “reasonable medical judgment” that Cox had a “life-threatening condition” and that an abortion was necessary to prevent her death or impairment of a major bodily function.
“A woman who meets the medical-necessity exception need not seek a court order to obtain an abortion,” the court wrote. “The law leaves to physicians – not judges – both the discretion and the responsibility to exercise their reasonable medical judgment, given the unique facts and circumstances of each patient,” the court wrote.
The case is a major test of the scope of the medical exception, an issue that is already before the court in a separate case brought by 22 women who experienced pregnancy complications, though none of those women was seeking an immediate abortion. Monday’s ruling appeared to reject a key argument by the plaintiffs in that case – that doctors’ good-faith belief should be enough to meet the exception.
“This ruling should enrage every Texan to their core,” Molly Duane of the Center for Reproductive Rights, a lawyer for Cox, said in a statement. “If Kate can’t get an abortion in Texas, who can? Kate’s case is proof that exceptions don’t work, and it’s dangerous to be pregnant in any state with an abortion ban.”
Paxton’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A few abortion rights demonstrators remain in the crowd after hours of public comments and discussion as Denton’s city council meets to vote on a resolution seeking to make enforcing Texas’ trigger law on abortion a low priority for its police force, in Denton, Texas, June 28, 2022. REUTERS/Shelby Tauber/File Photo Acquire Licensing Rights
Cox’s fetus was diagnosed on Nov. 27 with trisomy 18, a genetic abnormality that usually results in miscarriage, stillbirth or death soon after birth.
Paxton had urged the Texas Supreme Court to quickly step in after District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble at a hearing in Austin last Thursday issued a temporary restraining order allowing Cox to have an abortion.
In his filing to the top court, Paxton’s office said Cox fell “far short of demonstrating” she met the criteria for a medical exception and warned that Texas courts were not intended to be “revolving doors of permission slips to obtain abortions.”
Cox, 31, of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, filed a lawsuit last Tuesday seeking a temporary restraining order preventing Texas from enforcing its abortion ban in her case.
Cox’s lawyers have said her lawsuit is the first such case since the U.S. Supreme Court last year reversed its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which had guaranteed abortion rights nationwide.
Cox, who was about 20 weeks pregnant when she first sued, said in her lawsuit that she would need to undergo her third Caesarian section if she continues the pregnancy. That could jeopardize her ability to have more children, which she said she and her husband wanted.
Cox said in her lawsuit that although her doctors believed abortion was medically necessary for her, they were unwilling to perform one without a court order in the face of a lack of clarity in how the exception would be interpreted and potential penalties including life in prison and loss of their licenses for violating the state’s abortion laws.
Paxton warned in a letter sent shortly after Gamble issued the order that it did not shield doctors, hospitals or anyone else from prosecution or potential civil liability for violating Texas’ abortion laws. The letter was sent to three hospitals where Karsan has admitting privileges.
Read the full article. As I reported this weekend, one of the Texas justices that voted to block her abortion has been arrested 37 times while protesting outside abortion clinics.
Lawyers for Kate Cox, a Texas woman seeking an abortion due to health risks and a fatal abnormality in her fetus, say she is seeking care out of state after what they describe as "legal whiplash and threats of prosecution." pic.twitter.com/aJEbb8yeid
This is Texas Supreme Court Justice John Devine—a man tasked w/ impartially upholding the law—bragging about breaking the law to harass women at abortion clinics.
He’s one of the justices who just blocked Kate Cox from getting a *legal* abortion.
Bleak: "Kate Cox has been forced to leave Texas to get healthcare outside of the state… Kate is not available for media interviews, and we are not disclosing her whereabouts."https://t.co/VU2tECGKfn
I fully expect the Texas legislature to figure out some law that they can apply to charge the woman for getting the abortion in another state, and use that to throw her in jail, all because she wanted to save her own life! You can bank on it.
Hell, if she doesn’t return to Texas, count on them demanding her return through some sick & twisted legal theory bullshit, amounting to the fugitive slave act of the 19th century.
Missouri tried to claim fetuses as state citizens and claimed their right to protect the lives of their citizenry. It was also their excuse for attempting to block pregnant women (likely to be seeking abortions) from leaving the state.
You know what? If they want to make Ken Paxton the national face of the GOP going into 2024 and make the whole election about abortion rights, then I say let them. Go right ahead, Republicans.
The Texas law that bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy includes an unusual measure designed to ensure the law is enforced: Residents of the state can sue clinics, doctors, nurses and even people who drive a woman to get the procedure, for at least $10,000.
Yes, those that help. But there are so many rabid MAGAts out there, they will sue the husband, family members, the gas station where they might have filled up, etc. Even if she went alone and the husband stayed home with the kids, he has to defend himself and prove that in court. Even if he is found not guilty, there is no compensation for court costs, lost time from work, etc.
I’m sort of expecting that, but I hope they (texas) just leave her the fuck alone. I doubt they will. That state, like christianity gets off on the pain and suffering they cause.
He’ll attempt to drag her back to Texas in leg irons to face prosecution. He’ll fail, but the attempt will make him a hero to the radical right which will only embolden others to try the same stunts.
GOOD FOR HER !! There is no reason this woman’s life & health should be held hostage by a cruel, misogynist & sadistic gov’t seeking to only use this woman’s agony for their political gain.
Probably several, but it’s not media access that’s the issue. Going public to fight right-wing policies is a dangerous business these days, and if anyone is brave enough to try, the media will happily run with their stories.
Paxton is going to go after this woman, her husband and anyone who helped her after this. There’s no way he’s going to let her “win” by going around all the authority he believes he has in the state.
Yep. In TX we’re going to see just a tiny, insignificant taste of what a Trump presidency will be about 100% of the time if Dems don’t get out that vote.
Not only does he feel it “violates his authority & (faux) morality,” but it serves as a distraction from all of his previous crimes & corruption. He knows this helps to firm up support of the Christofascist right. “Sure, he’s dirty, but he supports our beliefs.”
The point is and always has been CRUELTY Delayed suffering is their objective These are all males who know so fuckung much about child birth MUST control a woman’s body Abortion should be on every states ballot and it, above much else would sink the GOP For this singular reason alone No woman should vote Republican
It’s absolutely disgusting that this woman and her husband are being forced to have what is probably one of (or the) most difficult and personal things they’ll ever deal with play out on the national stage. Fuck the Christofascists.
This shit would end fast if that cell cluster could be reimplanted into a man’s abdomen. Nope buddy, you got to carry it full term, even if it kills you. No backsies, your law, you deal with it.
This is the new normal for women in certain states. Tell me again how republicans should, in any way or any race, be seriously considered for elected office.
It should be an automatic disqualification. Disgusting misogynist Nazi fucks
She better set up house in a new state. Paxton will try to put her and anyone with her in prison for decades. He will probably try to prosecute the doctor and nurses who perform the abortion.
Thanks to Ten Bears for the link. I wish more Christian people inclusing Christian school teachers would read this. But then it is not about facts for them, it is about creating the biblic nation they desire. Hugs. Scottie
The United States Was Designed NOT To Be a Theocratic State
Jefferson Memorial. Washington, DC. Wikimedia Commons.
No man shall be compelled to frequent or support religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion.
-Thomas Jefferson. Excerpted from A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, drafted in 1777.
From the spectacular advance of freedoms of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s—even severely stressed, as they were, by the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.—a wellspring of profound hope rose that America would become the country we believed was envisioned by signers of the Declaration of Independence and the framers of the Constitution. Given that there is a mighty and dangerous culture war going on in America over the separation of church and state, with the Supreme Court coming down solidly on the side of religious control, a look back at what our Founders’ religious beliefs really were may be illuminating—and clarifying.
There were many who “founded” this country. There were 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, and 39 signed the Constitution. There were two women—Abigail Adams (wife of John), acknowledged as one of the finest minds of her time, and Mercy Otis Warren, a prolific political playwright and pamphleteer who was one of the earliest advocates of a Bill of Rights—who were excluded from participating by their gender. And, of course, Lafayette arrived from France to fight with the Continental army at the tender age of nineteen.
But there are seven men who are largely credited with achieving the creation of the architecture of governance that would become the United States. They are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison.
Currently, Christian religious conservatives in the United States are fond of saying that the United States was founded by Christians as a Christian nation. People like Josh Hawley—who has an Ivy League education and knows better—are outright lying about it for political purposes. The country was definitely not founded as a Christian nation. There were those who wanted it to be, but they lost.
But these days, both sides are engaged in what I call The Quote Wars. One side quotes one of the Founders, and the other side comes up with another quote by the same statesman that says, or appears to say, the opposite.
We’ll start here:
Religious Breakdown of the Founders
By far, the greatest number of the Founders were raised in one of the three most populous Christian traditions in the Colonies:
Anglicanism: George Washington, John Jay, and Edward Rutledge
Presbyterianism: Richard Stockton, Rev. John Witherspoon
Congregationism: Samuel Adams and John Adams (who eventually became a Unitarian)
Among the religions with fewer among their numbers:
Catholicism: Charles Carroll, Daniel Carroll, and Thomas Fitzsimmons
Quakers, Dutch Reformed, and Lutherans. Several of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were from these denominations.
At first blush, it would seem that they were all raised Christian. That’s true; they were. But they didn’t all stay Christian, at least not all Christian and not even mostly Christian. Why? Because this was the Age of Enlightenment, and now they had a new religion.
Deism and the Founding Fathers
The Age of Enlightenment, which spanned the years 1685-1815 (the end of the Napoleonic Wars), was a period of profound scientific, political, and philosophical exploration, and one of its most extraordinary fruits was the religious school of thought called Deism.
Deism was based on the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Isaac Newton (who was originally an alchemist), John Locke and others. As Britannica notes:
Deists argued that human experience and rationality—rather than religious dogma and mystery—determine the validity of human beliefs. In his widely read The Age of Reason, Thomas Paine, the principal American exponent of Deism, called Christianity “a fable.” Paine, the protégé of Benjamin Franklin, denied “that the Almighty ever did communicate anything to man, by…speech,…language, or…vision.” Postulating a distant deity whom he called “Nature’s God”, Paine declared in a “profession of faith”:
I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and in endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.
Deism was widespread in the Colonies during the part of the 18th century when the Founders were essentially inventing a country. The Founders as a group were immensely well-educated, and Deism was profoundly popular in colleges during the period. But its influence did not stop there: Deism suffused virtually all of Revolutionary America. Outwardly, many deists maintained ties to the religions traditionally followed by their families, but their functional belief systems might be extremely unorthodox. This is partly the cause of the Radical Right’s claim that the Founders were Christian. On paper, that’s what they look like. That doesn’t mean they were.
College of William and Mary endowed professor David L. Holmes writes that deism “inevitably subverted orthodox Christianity”—but how much?
In trying to determine how much Deism—or Christianity—affected the crafting of the United States, the trick is going to be understanding the degree to which a Founder’s religious beliefs were influenced by Deism. Dr. Holmes suggests a continuum comprising three categories: Non-Christian Deism, Christian Deism, and Orthodox Christianity (no Deism)—and suggests applying four criteria to determine into which of the three categories a Founder falls.
Church Attendance—but it’s dicey. Holmes points out that “colonial church served not only religious but also social and political functions, church attendance or service in a governing body (such as an Anglican vestry, which was a state office in colonies such as Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina) fails to guarantee a Founder’s orthodoxy.” Nevertheless, orthodox Christians would have attended church far more regularly than those heavily influenced by Deism.
Participation in Christian sacraments. Holmes points out that most would have been baptized as children, as participation in this sacrament was their parents’ decision, not theirs. However, adults influenced by Deism “had little reason to read the Bible, to pray, to attend church, or to participate in such rites as baptism, Holy Communion, and the laying on of hands (confirmation) by bishops.” Famously, George Washington refused to take communion as an adult.
Language used to refer to the divine. Here the three categories become more specific:
Non-Christian Deist: “Providence,” “the Creator,” “the Ruler of Great Events,” and “Nature’s God.” Note that the term Nature’s God appears in the Declaration of Independence. Examples: Ethan Allen, James Monroe, and Thomas Paine. Some, but not all, of the biographers of James Madison, who wrote the Constitution, put him in this category. Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence, falls somewhere between this category and the next. Largely during his lifetime, Alexander Hamilton belonged in this group, but later in life (and definitely on his deathbed) belonged in the category below. Benjamin Franklin described himself as a “thorough deist.”
Christian Deist: “Merciful Providence” or “Divine Goodness.” These are terms used by orthodox Christians, but Christian Deists don’t opt for the ones below. Examples: George Washington and John Adams.
Orthodox Christians: “Savior,” “Redeemer,” and “Resurrected Christ.” Examples: Patrick Henry, Elias Boudinot, Samuel Adams, and John Jay.
What do the Founders’ contemporary friends, family and especially clerics say about the Founder’s religious orientation and inclusion or rejection of Deism? Going back to the contemporary sources in the Founder’s life avoids the rank revisionism that seeks to strip the Deism out of the Founder’s life and re-vision it into a solely Christian context.
Dr. Holmes concludes that although orthodox Christians participated in every element of nation-building, a majority of the creators of the United States of America were Deists outright or had a Christian worldview heavily influenced by Deism.
In the end, the position of the United States on religion wound up in the First Amendment. Writes the Library of Congress:
Many Americans were disappointed that the Constitution did not contain a bill of rights that would explicitly enumerate the rights of American citizens and enable courts and public opinion to protect these rights from an oppressive government. Supporters of a bill of rights permitted the Constitution to be adopted with the understanding that the first Congress under the new government would attempt to add a bill of rights.
James Madison took the lead in steering such a bill through the First Federal Congress, which convened in the spring of 1789. The Virginia Ratifying Convention and Madison’s constituents, among whom were large numbers of Baptists who wanted freedom of religion secured, expected him to push for a bill of rights. On September 28, 1789, both houses of Congress voted to send twelve amendments to the states. In December 1791, those ratified by the requisite three fourths of the states became the first ten amendments to the Constitution. Religion was addressed in the First Amendment in the following familiar words: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
In notes for his June 8, 1789, speech introducing the Bill of Rights, Madison indicated his opposition to a “national” religion.
Most Americans agreed that the federal government must not pick out one religion and give it exclusive financial and legal support.
This is not what Mike Johnson has in mind. More in this to come, but when Johnson says the Bible is his guide book and that his presence as Speaker of the House is ordained by God, he stands in direct opposition to—and sedition against—the Constitution of the United States.
Or, back to Jefferson. This inscription, chiseled around the inner rim of the dome of the rotunda of the Jefferson Memorial, says it all.
“I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
—Thomas Jefferson, excerpted from a letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800.
That includes the tyranny of a singular, established national religion. Jefferson believed that freedom was a gift from God that could not be rightfully taken by any person or force from another—and that includes the denial of freedom by religion itself. Jefferson, and other Deists and Christian Deists, stood against the establishment of religion. There I stand also.
So the haters again got what they wanted. This is terrorism. They got something they hate / dislike shut down even though it was not harming anyone. Plus tell me how it is “protecting the children” to threaten to blow them up? I think we need to stop giving in to the threats. The bomb threats always turn out false, no bomb, and yet the events get cancelled. I am an atheist, a few weekends ago a church sent squads of believers in to our park without permission and they went door to door bothering people. Does that give me the right to threaten their church or them? This attempt to control what other people can do, see, hear, places they can attend, and how they dress is Taliban shit. It is horrible. Why? So a group of regressive people can be happy by forcing the world to be just like them? Hugs. Scottie
A popular restaurant and bar in Takoma Park, Maryland, received bomb threats on Saturday morning over a drag brunch and story time event. The restaurant, Motorkat, bills itself as “a safe space for people of all orientations and backgrounds.
Motorkat was forced to cancel the drag brunch to keep its patrons safe, the restaurant said in the release. Those with tickets will get a full refund.
Police were emailed a bomb threat toward attendees at the restaurant’s drag event, and the police department and a bomb squad “swiftly responded to the threat, ensuring the safety of both patrons and staff,” Motorkat said.
Because drag brunch and story hours harms children but threatening to kill children, their parents and drag queens does not. How the warped conservative mind works.
The threat was emailed to the police, not the restaurant, that is odd…and probably from a local source. Email should be easy to trace. Even if sent from a public library computer, time stamps and security cameras everywhere will help identify the terrorist. But if a maga police officer receives (or even sent) it will the electronic trail be lost like a rape victim’s DNA kit?
Exactly my thoughts! How dumb do you have to be to email a threat? It could easily be traced back to the sender. But on the other hand, right-wingers are not known for their intellect.
Technically, it can be traced back to the IP address from which it was sent, not the person. That said, it’s not 100% true that an email can always be tracked back to the actual IP address, either. (And yes, I used to be a tech guy who worked with people occasionally tasked with tracking the source of an email – which usually led to some student spoofing the identity of a person of authority.)
Takoma Park and the rest of Montgomery County are fairly liberal areas right up against D.C. I’m worried that there aren’t “safe places” anymore. Maybe the concept was always an illusion.
Perhaps a few high profile prosecutions and harsh prison sentences will convince people that making terrorist threats doesn’t qualify as “free speech”?
Takoma Park is as blue as it gets. It’s probably Indigo. If a drag brunch is threatened by a bomb, shows that this is a very serious threat to the LBTQIA community.
I just watched an upsetting movie on Netflix last night about Americans turning on each other. So, one of my first thoughts was “did the email come from outside the police station or inside?”
Remember just a few years ago when this wasn`t a thing. Then the Repugs told the non-thinking rubes it was a thing, a very important thing along with CRT and “saying Gay”, etc. Though the rubes may have always disliked some of it most of it was stuff they never even thought about as being important until they were told it was. In fact now it is so important that a certain percentage of the rubes are willing to kill you over it to save our society. While they wait to be told what the next important thing is of course. It`s the time honored way the Repugs have always operated. Be afraid, be very afraid, only we can save you. You don`t need to think about it or ask why (as if you would anyway) drag shows are bad so get to work. Keeps the rubes occupied and keeps their votes and always works.
I think it has more to do with hatred and fear of transgender people than it does with drag. The ignorant dimwits involved in the protests and threats don’t understand that they are not the same thing. They think that drag queens=trans and that they are “promoting transgenderism” when they appear in public.
Grown adults, simply dressing up in whimsical, flamboyant costumes on a Saturday morning and trying to have some fun and help others do the same while they enjoy a meal. Sure, why not call in a bomb threat? That sounds just awful and depraved. Save the children! Christ on a cracker.
Yes, I personally feel like Putin has had more direct responsibility with these recent flare-ups of homophobia and transphobia than Trump himself, not that Trump was totally innocent. Also, the willingness of big sports stars and sports associations/leagues to sell out to Qatar, Bahrein, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other sponsors/venues which are effing horrible for women’s rights and LGBT rights. This has been a big social back-sliding moment.
A possibly disturbing, but very accurate Parody about Ron Desantis’ version of public education. Lyrics and production work by The Freedom Toast – Video design and editing by Cinebot Video. Created for Parody Project Executive Producers for Parody Project Don Caron and Jerry Pender
At the NACL, Johnson knew he had a receptive audience. The group’s founder and president, Jason Rapert, a former Arkansas state senator, recently fretted to a reporter that “with all the troubles facing our country, with Democrats and leftists that are advocating cutting penises off of little boys and breasts off of little girls, we have reached a level of debauchery and immorality that is at biblical proportions.” He has called LGBTQ people a “cult” that promotes “unholiness, unrighteousness and immorality in our nation.” He has expressed hope that in 2024, Americans “will re-elect Jesus to be on the throne here again in our country.” Rapert believes fetuses have constitutional rights, and that abortion is worse than slavery and the Holocaust. As a state senator, he sought to amend the U.S. Constitution to obliterate the rights of LGBTQ people through a statement that marriage “is between a man and a woman.”
Not everything in Johnson’s speech was a divine revelation. “What we’re engaged in right now is a battle between worldviews,” he declared in a short clip an attendee posted on Facebook. “It’s a great struggle for the future of the Republic.” That’s standard Christian nationalist fare, and yet another sign that Johnson believes himself to be at war with the majority of Americans.
By elevating yet another relatively obscure Christian nationalist group, Johnson can also notch a victory for himself. He’s taken another step in normalizing an extremist organization whose member pledge reads, in part, that “atheists and anti-Christian groups have recently been more strategic in pursing their godless worldview through the courts and legislation than Christians” and that these groups “are becoming more aggressive and are trampling on the Christian liberty we have enjoyed in this country for centuries.”
A race for the Texas Supreme Court has an eight-year incumbent with the backing of the Republican establishment battling John Devine, an anti-abortion activist and frequent political candidate known for his fight to keep the Ten Commandments displayed in his Houston courtroom.
Despite past criticism, Devine has not shrunk from making his anti-abortion ideology a prominent part of his judicial campaign. At a June rally in Fort Worth, he described his convictions as being “forged in the crucibles” of the anti-abortion movement and told the crowd he had been arrested 37 times while protesting abortion clinics.
A campaign video relates a decision to continue a high-risk pregnancy, his wife Nubia’s seventh, which they said was likely to end in the deaths of both mother and child. Nubia Devine survived the birth. Their daughter lived for an hour after she was born.
Read the full article. Devine last appeared him 2017 when he issued a minority opinion against same-sex spousal benefits for Texas residents because marriage is meant for “procreation.” During his above cited 2012 campaign for the Texas Supreme Court, Devine alleged declared that he chose the district he ran in because “I can beat somebody with a Mexican name.” The incumbent was then-Justice David Medina. Devine is up for reelection in 2024.
John Devine, one of the TX Supreme Court judges that issued an order preventing a pregnant woman whose unborn child has a fatal defect from getting an abortion, was arrested several times for blocking abortion clinics. His wife carried a risky pregnancy to term. The child died. pic.twitter.com/l2UsHAkDe5
Like I said yesterday: The Texas Supreme Court wouldn’t have issued the stay if their intent wasn’t to force this poor woman to carry this doomed pregnancy to term, even if it kills her. Controlling and punishing women, including for “failing” to bring a fetus to term, is the entire point.
I’m hoping that this case is, at the very least, on an expedited calendar, as time is truly of the essence. Otherwise, this poor woman has to get the hell out of Tek-Zis to seek the medical care she needs. How fucking deplorable.
That’s what gets me about this: The pregnancy is doomed. The genetic tests are conclusive. This trisomy condition WILL result in a dead baby, guaranteed. On ultrasound, it’s already seen not to have the major organs needed to survive. This woman has already had two previous c-sections, and each subsequent one reduces her chances to have another child successfully—which she says she wants very much. But trying to carry a trisomy fetus to term is itself inherently risky because the fetus can pretty much die at any time or miscarry, risking lethal sepsis infection.
Yet these Rethug motherfuckers don’t care about any of that. They want to inflict unnecessary and potentially lethal harm and suffering on this woman. Why? No reason other to ensure that no woman, girl, or transperson can escape a pregnancy, wanted or unwanted, that might kill them. Put in these terms, the intent is clear.
Why? Yes, I agree. But it’s also a message to ALL women — you are just a vessel for the child, and your life and health, not to mention your needs and wants, are of minimal consequence.
Sweet Jesus I rant through all these arguments TWENTY years ago now in the marriage equality “debates” – these people hold no coherent postions, they just hate gay people and women.
Logic has no place in their debates. Only their feelings matter. Nobody else’s feelings are relevant. Pregnancy not viable? Mother and baby likely to die? So what? It’s was jesus would want.
You identified those I call ‘The Feelers’. They’re the ones who’re most easily swayed by conspiracy theories, loudmouth narcissists, screaming evangelicals, the ‘voice’ of authority’. etc. Whenever they experience fear they ‘know’ that they’re wrong and have to repent, grovel or humiliate themselves publicly.
The Feelers dominate the GQP and they’re extremely dangerous since anything can trigger them… literally. They pull a trigger whenever they get sufficiently riled up.
Hell, how many Christianistas view an unintended pregnancy as a just punishment for sex outside of marriage, insisting the woman carry it full term, and then denigrating the innocent child as “a bastard.”
Elie Mystal was saying during an interview the other day, that if anyone is thinking about sitting out the 2024 election or if they believe that a second Trump presidency won’t be so disastrous, just shout “ABORTION… ABORTION… ABORTION !!” A Trump regime will insure that abortion (at least for the 99%) is an impossibility. As we’ve seen, these insane & unmercifully cruel zealots & misogynists don’t care about women and whether they live or die, as long as their draconian ideology prevails
