Abortion - this has only just really hit home!

[SoManyQuestionsHere]

Speaking to my (radfem, this is how I was brought up - I am the "moderate" one in comparison) mum just now. Explained why I felt so desperately upset at the US SCOTUS decision. Me, ...

"Mum, they are letting us die! They don't give a flying fuck! They are letting us die like animals - and when they do, they can't even call us by what we are, "women"! They're calling us "individuals with uteri, mum! And it's this level of 'dehumanisation, and reduction to our component parts' that contributes to them sleeping at night! We could die, mum, and if we do: we don't even have a fucking name for 'us people who might die' anymore!"

Management summary:

• have just ... mountaineering terminology ... my otherwise clued in mum
• it's because BOTH of her daughters have had abortions - on of us (the one who's not me) under life-threatening circumstances.

Conclusion: mum (in her late 60s), sobbing. Myself: sobbing.

They are declaring us cannon fodder - and the people who vowed to stand up and fight for us can't even fucking name us!

We are women. We may get pregnant between the ages of ~14 to ~48 (depending). We could literally die if you don't recognise this!

... and yet, the fucking ACLU can't bring themselves to put "women" into their top 10s of "who will be affected if the US federal law to have an abortion is no longer".

Sorry for the rant ... just: very sad, very angry, generally speaking: very emotional now!

I made the mistake of watching the documentary on Netflix today and I am still FUCKING RAGING.

It is plain as the nose on your face that this is not about abortion at all, but about the control of women. MEN making these decisions and moralising from their high horses when it is MEN who cause the pregnancies in the first place.

And yes - it's a Women's Rights issue. This is all about the lives and health of women and only women. One of the things that made me angriest the day after the Supreme Court decision was that someone on Twitter posted a quote by RBG edited to replace the word 'women' with 'people'. How fucking dare they?!

Yep. The US. A place that would have had me give birth to my rapists baby and would call me privileged for it.

I hear you OP. I spent last weekend in incredulity after the announcement (which still shocked me in its barbarity even though there had been the leak) and the week since in a mild depression.
I have the good fortune to live in the UK but I can only imagine the horror that depending on what state they happen to live in, US girls and women could now be facing. It will be years before they can put abortion services back together even if the bans can ever be reversed.
And yes the distress that it causes when women as a class are being cast as a hateful, dispensable group of human beings, simply for having reproductive capacity and wanting to have control over our own bodies, is palpable. The sheer, vindictive misogyny of it all.

Sure, the leak!

I live in the UK too, for the record. Had my abortion in the UK, too (technically illegal, but: I got two doctors - one of whom I hadn't even ever met - to sign off on it being "medically necessary" - as the law of the land goes!)

I used to live in Switzerland in my late teens/early 20s and was an active campaigner for their current "up to 12 weeks: no questions asked; you'll just have to declare you cannot, though!" legislation. It's still not ideal in that you still, technically, have to declare that this is an emergency - but it still is pretty "at will - during the first 12 weeks", and it was approved by a popular referendum and hence is arguably one of the most secure abortion laws out there (would arguably take another referendum to overturn).

I'm not even sure what I think on specific politics ... I mean: I am; "as early as possible, as late as needed", for my personal stance.

But I'm not even sure it matters: they're exposing us to the risk of, literally, dying ... and they can't even call us who we are as they do: women! Women are the ones who die when safe and legal abortion isn't accessible! No person born with a penis, ever in the history of the species, has died due to "placental abruption - but: the fetus still has a heartbeat, though!"

This is why I get so angry. This is how it relates to the gender debate thing!

We should be asking our government to put warnings for travellers who are pregnant on all the countries where, if you suffer a miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy, you could risk dying because treatment will be withheld because of Draconian abortion laws.

This newsletter from Caroline Criado Perez is shocking, with examples of women not being treated for miscarriage or ectopic or being prosecuted for having a miscarriage.

U.K. women need to understand they must t risk travelling to these places if they are or could be pregnant.

newsletter.carolinecriadoperez.com/issues/invisible-women-roe-v-wade-1240290

That's a really good point, how will it affect travel insurance?
Personally, I'd boycott travelling there for pleasure.

And a shocking twitter thread describing having a miscarriage of a wanted baby in Texas. These women, (if they are lucky, and not at death's door, and if there is an abortion clinic available) have to go to an abort ion clinic to be treated for their miscarriage.
I don't know about abortion clinics in the USA, but in the U.K. I am quite sure they aren't set up to treat seriously I'll women with sepsis or a major haemorrhage.

Imagine being denied proper hospital treatment for a dangerous condition that could cause your death.

twitter.com/marlenastell/status/1542577987794640896?s=21&t=jn7eNNB4IujsVGg2gMgOOg

Nothing about any of this is 'pro-life' is it?

No it isn't. And I think the names of the women who die should be recorded.

There was an awful story in The Times last week about a couple who were on holiday in Malta where abortion is illegal and she started having a miscarriage, had to be flown out because Maltese doctors were so limited in what they could do. Then I saw this screenshot on FB implying that treatment for ectopic pregnancy is now compromised in some states. It’s utterly fucked up.
But it’s not just republicans is it, Trump got the SC to where we are, but Biden pulled out of Afghanistan effectively leaving every woman and girl in that country without any basic human rights.

Really feels like 100 years of progress are being peeled away.

*ill women 🤦‍♀️

Re that ectopic pregnancy tweet - I don't get it. Before the Fallopian tube has ruptured it maybe that the foetal heart is detectable and this is why they won't treat the ectopic at that time.
By the time there is a haemoperitoneum - blood in the abdominal cavity - the tube has ruptured and a medical emergency has taken over. I do not believe it would be possible to identify the foetus or the foetal heartbeat at that time. A vaginal ultrasound on a collapsed/collapsing woman and anyway the foetus floating around somewhere as the tube has ruptured and the ultrasound picture obscured by blood collection. Vital signs would be unstable or going that way very soon. Checking the haemoglobin takes time, collecting blood, sending it to the lab, lab tests etc. And the pregnancy has terminated itself by then.

It's just unbelievable that in a supposedly developed country a common gynaecological emergency cannot be treated as per normal evidence based accepted standards of treatment. How can this be allowed? Doctors who did this in the U.K. would be struck off!

I’m hoping it’s bullshit (the ectopic post). But that poor woman died in Ireland from sepsis because they were waiting for her embryo that had no chance of life to die before they took action to save her.

There’s no escaping the fact that women will die.

Interesting discussion of Roe v Wade and the implications for American women here.

I should say some of her views/advice regarding DIY contraception and abortion are a bit "out there" imo but I recognise that I live in a country where contraception and abortion are both free and readily available.

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/feminist-current/id603245791?i=1000567941186

I am working with our HR department to draw up a list of countries and US states that pregnant employees should not travel to because of their stance on abortion.

It is so depressing.

Oh wow. That is excellent @GrabbyGabby

British women need to wise up to this and understand that their life could be put in danger if they travel to certain places whilst pregnant or if they didn't know they were pregnant but had an ectopic for instance.

I know you can't be specific but any hint what sort of company you work for @GrabbyGabby ?

I posted on our workplace intranet about this and have requested that we discuss it at the next Women's Group (open to anyone who identifies as a woman) meeting next week.

Pre-pregnant is also a problem now too - there are women being refused refills of their medication (the one I saw was epilepsy meds I think) because they are also an abortifacient.

I lived in Malta for a while, but with the confidence of the young didn't really think about it. Now I've had all the examples put before me, if I were at risk of pregnancy, I wouldn't be going anywhere near there.

So yet another hurdle placed in the path of women of childbearing age - 'Sorry, I can't accept this terrific secondment opportunity on our top project because I can't risk spending long periods in that US state'.

Just ... brilliant! I hadn't even thought of the work situation!

Having said that, many of the large corporations are essentially saying they will pay for female employees to travel to a different state. Now, that's for local US employees, but I would hope it would also apply to anyone on secondment.

Should be interesting to see - especially in cases such as the Texas law, where anyone aiding and abetting may be sued. In fairness, probably still a very good business case for corporations, even if they are successfully sued. And - sorry, not sorry, active schadenfreude over this part: any misogynistic scumbag who would dare sue under that law fully deserves the top notch firm legal team that any large corporation typically hires and, even if they do win, all the pain that said legal team is capable of inflicting on them!

Personally I take a cynical view of the companies (some large corporations eg Disney) who have said they will pay for women to travel for an abortion.

Yes, perhaps it is making a useful political statement.

But in reality with some of these states having laws that mean a woman can be prosecuted on her return from an out state abortion and that people who aid and abet that abortion can also be prosecuted I can't see it working in practice.

Also, I don't fancy tapping up to HR or whoever to say "I need an abortion. Can you fund my travel."
No, I don't want to discuss it with work managers or whoever. No, I don't want it on my record.

At the start of the pandemic a lot of people faced the unpleasant task of notifying their employers that they or a member of their household had an ongoing health problem which was not causing them too many issues day to day and which therefore the employer might not have known about before, but which now made it necessary for the employee to self-isolate for the foreseeable future. The boundaries between work life and personal life were breached. It seems to me that this is happening again now. Employers may currently have the best of intentions as they make these plans to help women of childbearing age but it doesn't take a great leap of imagination to see that some employers are going to see this as yet another reason to avoid employing/promoting women of that age.

Yes.

I thought this too but have since seen it suggested that these companies are in talks with their private healthcare insurers about covering costs for out of state abortions. So you wouldn’t (as I understand it) have to go to HR you just contact your work-funded health insurance scheme in the same way you would for any other medical issue.