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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

Kentucky bans abortion

51 replies

DomesticatedZombie · 15/04/2022 18:49

Just saw this - I don't know much about US situation, but this sounds appalling.

'Lawmakers have enacted more than a dozen laws meant to restrict or outlaw abortion since Republicans won control of both chambers of the legislature in 2016.'

news.yahoo.com/did-kentucky-ban-abortion-heres-150723973.html

OP posts:
nepeta · 15/04/2022 19:03

The abortion providers in Kentucky can get the state-level bans stopped (stayed?) by the Federal courts, but this takes time. Ultimately most of the state-level abortion bans (and not just inKentucky) would be overturned if the Roe v. Wade ruling by the Supreme Court remains in force.

If the Supremes in the future rule differently, then all the conservative states are ready to make abortion illegal within that state by already having the laws in place. The most likely outcome of that 'different' ruling would be that each state can decide for themselves.

That would mean that abortion would be available in some states and not in other states, and then the anti-abortion people would try to stop women and girls from crossing state lines for the purpose of seeking abortions etc. A return to the pre- Roe v.Wade era.

LittleWhingingWoman · 15/04/2022 19:04

No exemptions - and this "It adds new restrictions for girls under 18 seeking abortions, including those asking permission from a judge when a parent is not available in circumstances that include sexual abuse, domestic violence or neglect.
And it requires fetal remains to be cremated or buried by a licensed funeral establishment, which could add hundreds of dollars to the cost."

Jaw dropping 😩

Whatsnewpussyhat · 15/04/2022 19:06

Absolute fuckers.🤬

tabbycatstripy · 15/04/2022 19:07

Women should go on a sex strike.

SickAndTiredAgain · 15/04/2022 19:09

And it requires fetal remains to be cremated or buried by a licensed funeral establishment, which could add hundreds of dollars to the cost."

At any gestation? I mean, I disagree generally but when abortion takes place very early, what remains are there? I had an abortion at 5 weeks, what would I have buried??

tabbycatstripy · 15/04/2022 19:13

SickAndTired

It’s also inhumane. For many women the decision to have an abortion is simple and not morally painful. For many others it’s very hard. Forcing women to ‘bury’ the foetus is cruel.

BernardBlackMissesLangCleg · 15/04/2022 19:29

I never really understand what these people actually want, as they're often ambivalent about contraception too. is it for no-one to have sex at all?

what a mess

Tiphaine · 15/04/2022 19:36

I can't see the point either Bernard. It wasn't very long ago (my nan's generation) where women in Ireland would have a child most years until their bodies couldn't take any more, and the doctor had to have a little word with the husband. My nan got off relatively lightly; she only had eight live births.

tabbycatstripy · 15/04/2022 19:36

‘is it for no-one to have sex at all?’

No. It’s for women to marry young, have children inside marriage, not use contraception, not have abortions.

nepeta · 15/04/2022 19:37

@BernardBlackMissesLangCleg

I never really understand what these people actually want, as they're often ambivalent about contraception too. is it for no-one to have sex at all?

what a mess

The fight in the US is over who has control over women's reproductive systems. That ability to gestate is an immense resource, of course.

There is a very strong and very conservative Christian group in the US and most of these moves are created to appeal to them. White (right-wing) Evangelic Christians, conservative Catholics and conservative Muslims in the US are all very explicitly against abortion and some cults within that larger demographic group are also opposed to all forms of contraception.

tabbycatstripy · 15/04/2022 19:37

‘It wasn't very long ago (my nan's generation) where women in Ireland would have a child most years until their bodies couldn't take any more, and the doctor had to have a little word with the husband.’

In some of these states they will (I expect) try to make it legal to rape your wife again.

nepeta · 15/04/2022 19:39

When I wrote "opposed to all forms of contraception" I should have added that this is really "opposed to all forms of contraception the woman can use without her male partner's knowledge or permission."

So it is the pill and the coil they disapprove much more than the condom.

Original poster
DomesticatedZombie · 15/04/2022 19:51

@tabbycatstripy

‘is it for no-one to have sex at all?’

No. It’s for women to marry young, have children inside marriage, not use contraception, not have abortions.

I don't know that the actual lived consequences have much to do with it, tbh.

It's elevating the foetus above the rights of the woman carrying it. Presumably because a woman as a gestational carrier is less than human.

OP posts:
Original poster
DomesticatedZombie · 15/04/2022 19:52

Sorry, 'birthing parent'.

OP posts:
Delphinium20 · 15/04/2022 19:54

tabbycatstripy is possibly on to something.

In some of these states they will (I expect) try to make it legal to rape your wife again

What I am worried about is the use of 'reproductive rights' being touted on the left in deference to the TRAs because this could be interpreted as reproductive rights for men: to force their wives to have children, to make using a surrogate/egg donor a right.

It should be rights for women's reproductive autonomy...not generic reproductive rights.

I am worried on all of this.

tabbycatstripy · 15/04/2022 19:54

I think it’s because they honestly believe a foetus is a human life.

To be upfront, I believe that. It just leads me to a different conclusion because that human life exists inside another person, and that person has rights.

tabbycatstripy · 15/04/2022 19:55

‘What I am worried about is the use of 'reproductive rights' being touted on the left in deference to the TRAs because this could be interpreted as reproductive rights for men: to force their wives to have children, to make using a surrogate/egg donor a right.’

Also an issue. I don’t believe in ‘reproductive rights’, as it takes two people to make a baby. You have the right to bodily autonomy.

Original poster
DomesticatedZombie · 15/04/2022 20:05

@tabbycatstripy

I think it’s because they honestly believe a foetus is a human life.

To be upfront, I believe that. It just leads me to a different conclusion because that human life exists inside another person, and that person has rights.

Yes, but they believe that the foetus has greater rights than the woman - this demonstrated by this appalling 'no exceptions'.

Of course Savita Halappanavar was a tragic demonstration of the consequences of that elevating of a foetus over a woman.

OP posts:
tabbycatstripy · 15/04/2022 20:09

‘Yes, but they believe that the foetus has greater rights than the woman - this demonstrated by this appalling 'no exceptions'

Yes. I don’t believe a foetus has rights to live in a woman. That sounds blunt but it is the truth.

I’m willing to accept limitations on abortion rights, but it should be safe and legal in the early stages of pregnancy.

Artichokeleaves · 15/04/2022 20:18

@Delphinium20

tabbycatstripy is possibly on to something.

In some of these states they will (I expect) try to make it legal to rape your wife again

What I am worried about is the use of 'reproductive rights' being touted on the left in deference to the TRAs because this could be interpreted as reproductive rights for men: to force their wives to have children, to make using a surrogate/egg donor a right.

It should be rights for women's reproductive autonomy...not generic reproductive rights.

I am worried on all of this.

There is an increasing joined up creep towards women's bodies being resources that can be regulated and used regardless of consent in several ways.

Not least the slowly emerging but oh so tactfully disguised creep of access to females being a male human right, regardless of female consent or willingness to participate. And in the incel literature, which oddly seems quite joined up with this way of thinking, there is all the belief about the male right to sex and the need to regulate and provide sex using female bodies with compulsion as needed.

Yes, it's utterly bloody terrifying. And these people would frame themselves as so very sensitive and progressive and modern.

Original poster
DomesticatedZombie · 15/04/2022 20:22

It's just a regression to the norm of the past several hundred years, isn't it?

Women are - in blunt evolutionary terms - necessary for reproduction, andvulnerable in various ways, both economic and physical, to coercion.

Women's rights to bodily autonomy are always going to be in tension to 'might is right' patriarchy, I expect, to a greater or lesser degree. Depressing, but I don't know how we get beyond those fairly basic physical realities.

OP posts:
tabbycatstripy · 15/04/2022 20:24

‘Depressing, but I don't know how we get beyond those fairly basic physical realities.’

We were getting there in the UK. And we will not let our laws regress.

Original poster
DomesticatedZombie · 15/04/2022 20:25

Yes, I agree, but it seems very fragile.

OP posts:
Thoosa · 15/04/2022 20:27

@tabbycatstripy

Women should go on a sex strike.
Sadly that still won’t help rape and abuse victims.

I think anyone who can should leave the State (the South?) in protest. I think reintroduction of death penalty or ban of abortion are the two things that would send me to another jurisdiction again.

It’s all so retrograde.

Boxowine · 15/04/2022 20:50

The thing that you have to understand about the religious right in the US is that it doesn't consist of one church. It consists of every branch of faith that basically couldn't get along with mainstream Protestant churches in Europe and had to emigrate.