46 Comments

And now that I have read it, you are right, on every point. With women graduating from colleges at a higher rate than men, it’s time to shove us back into second class citizenship. I’m going to be 70 this year and I know that’s damn old. Back in the day, a married woman could not get credit on her own. There was very little day care available, and only women whose husbands were poor providers worked outside the home. Having a child without being married was “out of wedlock.” Abusive spouses were rarely reported, same with child abuse. Going to college was for getting your Mrs degree. Misogyny was accepted as normal though the language was less crude. In the 80’s I worked for a progressive company that allowed pictures of nude women to hang in the service department. The company where I did my internship paid women substantially less than men because we were secondary earners(I.e. wives). Gotta stop, my blood pressure can’t take it!

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I'm 75 years old now - and lived in Hawaii during the 1970s. Sure, we were fighting alongside Gloria Steinem for women's rights and the right to choose - not to have a baby. But it was never much of an issue there in the islands. I did celebrate Roe in 1973 - but to believe that could come to an end, never entered my mind. Now I live in Denver - not too far from Colorado Springs where we have REGULAR murders - in the open - of abortion doctors and workers at Planned Parenthood Clinics. It's pretty hard to take the always-present LET'S MAKE THINGS HARDER FOR WOMEN - or just beat them the hell up and hopefully kill them. Whenever I see some slogan like - "America - Home of the Free and the Brave" - I just want to PUKE. Yeah, long as you're a WHITE MAN. This is how my entire life has felt. Whenever I visit a country where women are actually celebrated - HELL YES, I want to stay. Even Catholic countries like Argentina are winning abortion rights. So, AMERICA - WTAF??? The Supreme Court is so corrupt now - NO HOPE.

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Reading this article brought back memories of when I was training for my RN degree in 1978 and was rotating in the maternity ward in a private hospital in a wealthy suburb of Los Angeles . A mother of three children was getting an abortion due to failed birth control and that she was overwhelmed by three children already as well as her husband recently losing his employment. She expressed gratitude that I didn’t judge her and being a young mother of two I was understanding of circumstances that could lead to a decision like this. The charge nurse gave me the option of not attending the procedure if I had any religious objections which I didn’t. I was naive back then and didn’t realize the extent of the crazy Christofascist hysteria leading to shaming and vilifying women as well as assassinating doctors for performing abortions. I also remember what I went through after I obtained my degree, was working but recently divorced, and tried to apply for a checking account and credit card from a major bank. What a joke that was. I was told I had to have my husband’s approval! I had to sit down with the branch manager and show income (I was actually making more money than my ex-husband ironically ) and he grudgingly let me open an account. It’s ridiculous what women have had to go through over the years for autonomy and now the right wing nutters want to send us back decades.

I can’t help but get angrier as I read this and remember the past. I’m old now too and thankful that I live in a fairly progressive state (California), not perfect but at least we have a sane governor. I remember the mess of Ronnie Raygun as governor, and as I have commented in the past, was horrified he was elected President. Somehow too many regressive Americans are just compelled to elect racist, misogynistic hate-filled people who have no vision to really help our country advance and seem determined to turn us into a banana republic.

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What is being overlooked is that the origins of the anti-woman policies and practices have their origins in the dogma of organized monotheistic religious organizations/cults. Best example is the Catholic Church that has murdered and tortured people for centuries and had a particular fondness for burning women alive on stakes.

We look with dismay at the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia and Iran and Afghanistan by Muslim fanatics, but we ignore the Christian sects that are equally dismissive of women's rights. We let a Catholic church that has its priests and bishops notoriously involved in serial child rape be protected at the highest levels of the organization tell us that they have a unique connection to "god" and know what is morally proper.

It comes down to the money that the churches are able to extract from their members and all their dogma is designed to promote and maintain that revenue stream and to increase it by refusing to let people practice birth control. The Catholic church has made using condoms a sin and this has had dire consequences with the spread of HIV in Africa.

The corrupt U.S. Supreme Court is ignoring the separation of church and state that was so very important to the founders of our non-Christian nation and this institution no longer serves a useful purpose and should be disbanded.

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I don't it's this complicated; these dudes are messed up mysogynists. Daddy (or Uncle so and so or a clergy member or a teacher or whomever) raped them as a child and Mommy didn't protect them. One is sicker than the next. Beyond that, they all use abortion as a 'false flag' to divert electorate attention, polarize people and create dissension to hide all of their prurient, deviant behaviors. Thomas is a creep and we all know it. Kevin McCarthy gives me the creeps, too. Gym Jordan? Just stop.

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You raise a deeper issue. Although it is certain Christian sects that oppose abortion, Christ said nothing about it. These Christians must go to Jewish traditional writings, in this instance, the Torah (Books of Moses) to justify their position. But many Jews do not agree with the Christian interpretation of the Jewish writings. Although there are liberal and conservative Jewish opinions about how wide the grounds that justify abortion are, there is general agreement that it is always permitted to protect the health of the mother.

How many disputes between Christian factions are over interpretations of the Jewish writings that have been renamed the Old Testament. The Russian mystic Helena Blavatsky (1831–1891) was aware of the divisive harm the inclusion of the Jewish writings into Christianity, renamed as the Old Testament, was causing. She dubbed the Bible, “the Rabbi’s revenge”.

But as you pointed out in an earlier article, keeping a large majority of voters focussed on divisive issues, like abortion, keeps them from focussing on learning the methods the wealth class is using to hollow out the middle class. The wealthy will fund both sides to keep the abortion issue front and center.

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I don’t even need to read this to know you’re right!

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What a mess our society is in. For solace, I return to some words I find comfort in: "Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened ... and you will find rest for your souls." Matthew 11:28. These words come from a man who dispersed a crowd of men who were set on stoning a woman caught in an adulterous act (and only the woman, the man was excused). Despite the many errors in my own life experience, I've found his words to be true -- it's possible, in such a society, to find the rest he spoke of.

Shocking to learn that 1 in 6 hospital beds in the U.S. are under "Catholic directives". That's quite the industry the Pope and his Cardinals and bishops are running. Interesting how many institutions that began with good intentions and motives have become an "industry" that steers financial profit to men.

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There are more female voters than there are male voters in America. Women who vote for right wing Republicans are the problem. Left-wing pro-choice males are helping what few women are protecting their rights to an abortion. This has more to do with religious in doctrination and greed of the capitalists than it has to do with white males. The capitalist wants slaves like the good old days of building the pyramids and ever since.

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“STONE ALL THE WHORES”

And that gives away the real reason for their opposition to abortion. They don’t care about the “babies”, and they never did (we know that, because they refuse to do anything to support them once they’re born).

It’s extramarital sex that they want to stop, because their religion tells them it’s wrong.

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Women are already dying from not being given medical help. Removing a dead or dying or deformed fetus from a sick or dying woman is NOT an "abortion." Anyone denying women medical care for any reason are EVIL. White (or other) males and twisted women pushing this evil are choosing to BE evil themselves. Pitiful! Ruthie B

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Yep.

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i worked in a church basement free clinic pre-Roe versus Wade. I watch the young women being dragged down the stairs there's blood running down her legs from botched code hangers abortions. We had opportunity to send them to New York or Japan. The wealthy have always had access to abortion and always will.

BUT: ectopic pregnancies die? Hydatidiform mole causes positive pregnancy test/--just DIE?

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Right wing men are big on freedom until it involves a woman's right to choose. They don't do nuance, their brains are not wired that way. Stories of individual hardship, rape, and a health crisis will not move them, because it is not happening to THEM.

Religious men and women who fight for "life" are absolutely certain that suffering and deprivation will get you to heaven. Makes no sense---shows no empathy.

The polls on the abortion rights issue are all over the place, but what rings true is that the majority of people do want choice; they have empathy and support WOMEN. Misogyny is alive in this country, but it is not well because we have exposed it.

Glinda: "So, what the Munchkins want to know is, are you a good witch, or a bad witch? Dorothy : But, I've already told you, I'm not a witch at all!"

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