To be totally gutted for American women?

[Anothernamechangeplease]

The US Supreme Court has reversed the Roe v Wade ruling. Millions of American women have lost their right to make decisions about what happens to their own bodies.

I have never had an abortion and personally, I'm not sure if I ever could, but I have always been passionately of the view that individual women should be able to make that choice for themselves. It's awful that this right has been removed for so many.

When I was growing up, in one of the most backward places in the universe for women's and girls' rights, even we weren't told to just say 'no' to rape. That's just mental.

Yes. The infant mortality rates in America are APPALLING for a developed country; and they are generally much worse in the conservative 'pro-life' states than in the more liberal coastal states

Mortality of mums during pregnancy and during childbirth is also high in certain states - especially amongst poorer groups.

www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2019-06-12/these-states-have-the-highest-maternal-mortality-rates

I do think this issue is a bit like gun control. It just seems so batshit to us from the outside but to them it's perfectly normal. There is no reasoning with these people, I don't even think there is any point trying to argue with them, they will never move from their point.

These are people who think that a woman who is pregnant with an 8 week old ectopic embryo should not be allowed to abort because the life of that group of cells is so sacrosanct, but will happily stand by and watch as 7/8/9 year old kids are slaughtered in their classrooms at school.

There is just no reasoning with it, what is the point of even discussing it to be honest?

Those poor women.

@ThickCutSteakChips It's a purity thing isn't it, tied up with religious belief about innocence and sin? A bunch of cells is more pure than a born baby; a born baby is more pure than an older child; a child is more pure than an adult.

The newer the embryo, the purer its state. A born baby which emerges into a poor household is doubly-tainted tainted; but as embryonic cells or foetus would still have had sacrosanct status.

A structuralist anthropologist would have a field day.

I’m angry and so incredibly sad. A terrible blow for Women’s rights and it’s heartbreaking thinking of all the damage that will be wrought by it.

Im guessing trainbear won’t be back to explain their awful comment

We've had some absolute doozies lately. Something about women's rights means some people can no longer suppress their stupidity.

Or say "no"

I did, but he went ahead anyway.

Daughter…all the fucking way

If "men" can get pregnant then how is abortion a woman's rights issue? You can no longer argue that restricting abortion disadvantages women only. We all know it's an issue which only affects females but how do you make that argument without legal recognition of sex. It's really frightening how people cannot see where all this is heading

That is a non point. Abortion rights affect every one who has the potential to become pregnant. It's completely irrelevant how or what such persons identify as.

And I don't have an issue about commentators talking about "people" being affected. I don't care if that is to be inclusive of trans men or not but I don't think there is anything wrong in acknowleding this will affect women and their families- which "people" does.

I wonder if they are actually profiting from the banning of abortion. Look at all those untainted babies that will now be able to be sold to naice middle-class white families.

Getting closer and closer to Gilead.

if republicans regain the kind of control they had in the Trump era - White House, Congress and Senate, they will make abortion a federal crime.

Yes, because rapists will always accept a 'no'!

Entirely agree. Of course there are male predators who use self ID as 'trans' as a means of invading female safe spaces. Of course that's a real danger. But the biggest encroachments on women's rights come not from those who wish to blur the distinction between men and women, but from those, from the Taliban to the Trumpsters, who wish to exaggerate and enforce the distinction and keep women in traditional roles. Oh, and if born-males could get pregnant, abortion would be unrestricted everywhere!

I don't think we will reach American extremes, but we need to be vigilant everywhere.

I live in a fairly progressive area, certainly not one that would not usually be associated with the religious right. But in 2010, a vicious Christian-Right campaign led by a 'concerned citizen', who was in fact the representative of the local Life charity but did not state this, attacked our pro-choice MP as 'Dr Death' and contributed to his narrow defeat. (His opponent and successor as MP probably wasn't directly involved.). We learned a few lessons about never thinking that 'it can't happen here' and about the importance of different parties uniting to prevent or reverse such things; and, six years earlier than most other places, about the dangers of right-wing 'populism'; and we reversed the result in subsequent elections. But this was happening in my backyard while I was smugly tutting at 'Palinites' thousands of miles away!

And there are of course parts of the UK, especially in Northern ireland, where the religious right has far more of a foothold.

Funny how it's a child/baby as soon as a woman announces her pregnancy and posts her 12 week scan photo and throughout the entire pregnancy when wanted- but god forbid it's a baby if we're killing it.

Funny how it's a child/baby as soon as a woman announces her pregnancy and posts her 12 week scan photo and throughout the entire pregnancy when wanted- but god forbid it's a baby if we're killing it
Its awfully easy to make a big fuss about something that doesn’t exist, you don’t have to fund it or be responsible for it, or fight for its rights, and yet the second it becomes a something, an entity, you abandon it.

Wanted pregnancy?

Versus unwanted pregnancy?

It’s really, really not difficult to comprehend.

So @CoastalWave are you happy that there's going to be a rise of infanticides, maternal abandonments, women dying from unsafe abortions, a rise of troubled children in foster care and no one to take them? Is that the outcome you wanted?

It's even funnier how it's a child, a person, a sacred life, as long as it's unborn and makes no demands on you or forces you to reconsider any policies or personal comforts...but then nothing for you to think about once it's actually born. Dead to you, in fact.

Funnier still how this towering respect for life means controlling women's bodies and not guns or the death penalty.

And yet funnier still how you care more for the unborn than the living women who will die as a result of this, taking the precious unborn with them anyway.

Oh, you do like your funny, lazy, woman-killing thinking, you funny funny person, you.

Funny how it's a child/baby as soon as a woman announces her pregnancy and posts her 12 week scan photo and throughout the entire pregnancy when wanted- but god forbid it's a baby if we're killing it

Well in the case of a woman carrying a foetus that she wants and plans to carry to full term, that foetus is going to develop into a baby, so it is not surprising that would be the language used.

It seems the authorities are expecting a significant spike in suicides, infanticides, accidental deaths from botched terminations and even murders of women by partners who refuse to be "trapped" by an unwanted baby, or families who don't want the "shame".

There's a thread on Twitter where a cadaver dog handler was saying they are having meeting about how to cope with what will be an inevitable rise in maternal and infant deaths and that a lot of those poor girls/ women/ infants will be dumped like rubbish to try to cover it up.

Of course, this will mainly be poor families. People with money will always find a way to circumvent the laws that don't favour them.

Excellent post - this is exactly how it is.