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!

Thank you, as an American woman, I appreciate your support for travel bans. We need all the help we can get to fight this.

Keeping a close eye on the legality of abortions, by post. There will inevitably be a battle around what can be posted to a person and how the law works around internet supply of pills.

Is there anything even remotely comparable that might affect men? I can't think of a single thing.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g, naturally there isn't! How else would the wonderful machinery of misogyny keep on working!

Fun fact: medication to treat impotence in men is pretty uncontroversial world wide, usually covered by health insurance and available OTC in some places. Now, I suppose we are all in agreement that being able to get an election is, generally speaking, a helpful situation in terms of "being able to impregnate". You'd think that the forced-birthers would positively adore the notion of some men not being capable of causing unwanted pregnancies ...

... think again! Men's serial satisfaction is, of course, a non-negotiable must-have type situation!

*erection ... thanks, autocorrect!

Elections, as the situation in the US shows, are pretty fucking useless at preventing misogyny!

There was a thread on twitter about a 10 year old girl who has been denied abortion.

There were so many men in the comments incredulous that a girl so young could get pregnant.

It's becoming more and more obvious to me that these laws affecting women and girls are being made by people who have no idea how the female body works.

It's becoming more and more obvious to me that these laws affecting women and girls are being made by people who have no idea how the female body works.

And not just men who display such ignorance. As well as seeing, maybe on the same thread, lots of men who don't believe a ten year old could get pregnant, I've also seen another thread where there was discussion about young women not choosing to go to college in states with abortion bans and women popping up to say *Some women don't have sex/use contraception.....
Apparently oblivious that *Some women get raped / contraception fails etc

Plus of course the general lack of understanding that these laws affect ALL women including those who may be vehemently against abortion if they want life saving treatment of pregnancy problems like miscarriage and ectopics.

Horrific.

There was that US politician who wanted to get a law passed saying a foetus from an ectopic pregnancy must be re-implanted, or something equally impossible.

What's the position on the morning after pill in the states where abortion has been banned?

Technicality re heartbeats. They're caused by the heart valves closing together with a thud. There are two beats to a heartbeat because we have four-chambered hearts and each pair has its own set of closing valves.

So there are only actual heartbeats when there is an actual heart, the organ, which happens around 22 weeks.

At six weeks, or whenever the hell it is the forced birth fetishists think it is, lab equipment can pick up the electrical signal of contractile heart cells. They don't make any sound, of course, but fetishists sometimes dub that in to make their point. Contractility is a property of heart cells, and they'll do it in tissue culture in a petri dish.

I guess better not abort any petri dishes if your lab works on cardiac myopathy.

Thank you Quixote that’s a helpful explanation.

Did you know that before this U turn it was legal to abort a baby in US up to 37 weeks pregnant and if a very late abortion did not work and baby survived they would refuse it care so it would be left to starve to death. This new ruling will force a long conversation where hopefully abortion is granted up to in EU 16 weeks or UK 24 weeks but not 37 weeks and Camilla Harris has argued for up to 38 weeks.

I am not against abortion but I think over 20 weeks should be reserved for cases where mother at risk, incest, severe deformities. Rape victims can get morning after pill.

I actually woke up early this morning thinking this. I'm putting here to get it out of my head, it seems to fit and I don't think it warrants its own thread. Anyone who thinks differently is welcome to take the ball and run with it.

If abortion is so important to LGBTQ+ people, much more important than to old style women, why is Malta (for the 7th year) been put as the most LGBTQ+ friendly place is Europe? Malta where abortion is completely banned.

I know...logic and consistency....!

Yes, I've seen some comments regarding the Archie Batersbee case saying similar things about hearts and how they can continue to beat separately from any brain function

My very long-time friend moved to the States a decade or so ago - in one of the states that are in the rush to pass legislation. She was struggling with depression anyway - but the atmosphere and feeling, as a woman of reproductive age who values womens' rights, brought on by the ruling was the final straw in her opting out of this life - she committed suicide a few days ago.

It wasn't the court ruling that killed her - but it was definitely the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of feeling utter despair.

I'm so sorry, @CoffeeWithCheese.

I'm American and I have no clue what you are talking about here.

Oh @CoffeeWithCheese I'm so sorry to hear that. Most days lately I feel like I'm walking through mud. Everything is just so heavy and I'm so tired. This is a broken country.

Gosh the callousness of this post. "Rape victims can get the morning after pill". No, not in all circumstances they can't. And the MAP isn't 100% effective anyway. Here's an idea - let women and girls who have been raped and find themselves pregnant as a result make their own choices about this. As with any women/girl who is pregnant and might want to choose not to be.

Well said, really well said. Men can never be allowed to choose for us because they have so little regard for us.

For those still warbling on about the fictional 38 week fetus left to starve to death and bleating about the need for a "conversation" about abortion these are the CDC stats for abortions in the USA
GESTATION
Within 6 weeks: 43%
7 to 9 weeks: 36%
10 to 13 weeks: 13%
14 to 15 weeks: 3%
16 weeks or more: 4%
Source: C.D.C.

I think we can safely say that that 4% of abortions in the USA that happen after 16 weeks are exceptional - TFMR or severe risk to the mother or a child realising late she is pregnant by rape or incest etc. Look at those stats - women deal early with unwanted pregnancies (the other stats are also worth looking at - most are already mothers and are poor). They don't viciously keep a pregnancy and abort at 35 weeks. honestly I think it is only men can imagine that scenario as a thing a person would do. I trust women.

The right to travel to another state is a red herring too. women too sick to travel for treatment will die like Sarita did if they are not able to access full healthcare - as is now the case in many states. And while many well-off GOP women will of course travel for an abortion, they will be as stuck as anyone else in the case of a miscarriage or ectopic.

The poster who said that people don't understand how women's bodies work but are happy to legislate for them anyway nailed it. Most people don't understand that plan B isn't an abortofacient because they seem to think that conception happens at the moment of ejaculation. Fine to be ignorant but not so fine to legislate on foot of that ignorance.

I also don't believe that it will end here (I live in the US). I think the next thing is going to be an attempt at a federal ban on abortion. And in a gerrymandered congress who knows ....

Absolutely @Pallisers - these right wing nut jobs will not stop. They are going to start arresting women who travel for abortions, trying to extradite blue state citizens for aiding and abetting abortion and bringing red state civil actions against individual donors that support reproductive rights. It's state sponsored oppression. People in congress are not taking this seriously enough.

@Cartoonmom, yes, they will!

And I, for one, will be fighting this tooth, claw, and nail - even though I'm not even in the US. Not only (but also) for reasons of solidarity but because this is an insanely dangerous precedent for a supposed liberal democracy.

This is the hill that, if push comes to shove, I shall be willing to die on!

I'm a woman who has had an abortion. My sister had one, under much more precarious circumstances (in a country where it was considered a criminal act). And my maternal grandmother had one, too. That is an entire family tree of women who, under very different circumstances (I was "merely" young, poor, and in no place to raise a child, my wonderful sister was brutally assaulted, and my grandmother was advised she was unlikely to survive a third pregnancy when she already had a little boy and girl to take care of) chose their own futures and those of their current or potential children over societal stigma.

My mum has not had an abortion. But she seriously considered it when she fell pregnant with me, unplanned, aged 21. It was only, according to her, her own mother telling her "you chose what you want, and if it all goes tits up: you and the baby will always be welcome back where you grew up!" that gave her the confidence that, yes, she could and should have that child.

Long story short: the personal is, indeed, deeply political. Reproductive rights is the hill I will die on because all of the women I have been closest to in my life have been personally affected. How could I not be willing to fight for them? For us?