I think we should ask the Supreme Court’s view about vegetarianism. Should people be required to eat a plant based diet or should people be allowed to eat meat occasionally? I am thinking of repainting my interior. I can’t decide on a color. Maybe the Supreme Court should dictate the color for all interior walls in America.
Who gives a damn what they think about Mifepristone? If you want to end a pregnancy this medicine will always be available through a black-market just like marijuana was before it was legalized and as alcohol was during prohibition. The court and government has no roll here other than to protect our right to decide without coercion.
Theocrats don't see the world that way. Force is all they know; all they have ever known and in their day, have had great fun burning people (mostly women) who don't agree. If they want us all vegans, they'd do that. But they are more likely to force us all to eat meat on behalf of the meat producers. Make no mistake, Thomas, his crazy wife, and Alito would find a way to burn us at the stake if they could. They're working on it.
You are right about the black market. But that will drive up the costs and the risks.
"Who gives a damn what they think about Mefipristone?" Really?
Having to rely on the black market means having to contravene federal law, with the possibility of a prison sentence of up to 5 years (or more), plus a fine of up to $250,000, in order to exercise what, from Roe to Dobbs, was a constitutional right.
Do you think that our judicial system can handle 100’s of thousands of women who choose civil disobedience? Who do you think the AlCapone for mifepristone will be? I am sorry but this situation to me is a farce much like Putin’s election. We as citizens should not put up with coercion by our government on matters of personal choice. People need to create “good trouble” as said by John Lewis.
Thanks for criticizing, in my opinion, a cavalier statement. The black market is expensive, as well as illegal! It would again make abortion available only to women of means - as has been the case throughout banned periods of time. Women with money could always obtain an abortion, and always will - no matter what the forced birthers rule in the Supremely Corrupt Court.
I was being sarcastic about vegetarianism and interior wall colors. I was trying to use them as examples of ridiculous topics on which courts should not rule.
Not arbitrary! Women need to be controlled and poor women need to be killed off with complications of pregnancy, since they are often dark-skinned and clearly promiscuous. USA is a Christian nation and the Flying Spaghetti Monster and his only begotten son Meatball speak directly to the Christian Nationals. If they can get away with it, including bloodbaths, falsifying elections and hanging a VP, the FSM and Meatball meant for it to happen. It's all about control. That's why dictatorships are so appealing. Even if you are led to the slaughter, at least you have a white male with the Power of Crazy leading! (no insult to thoughtful white males intended -- my son, brother and my partner are in that group)
I decided not to include in my post the idea of filing a lawsuit to require primary school teachers to teach cursive. To make sure that cursive is taught people should appeal the decision all the way to the Supreme Court so they in their omniscience can decide the issue.
As I said above. GenBioPro which manufacturers the drug, should take it out of patent, and sell it OTC like Aspirin. They will still make money, probably more, but they cut out the AMA which loses money, writing prescriptions.
The loss of profits made from prescription sales, will be offset by the increase in sales once it is OTC.
How many prescription drugs whose patents expired, are not sold OTC.?
I don't know Suzie, but consider Levonorgestrel EC pills were the first hormonal contraception to have switched from prescription to OTC status, in 2006.
Your question caused me to google.When did emergency contraception become over the counter?
The FDA first approved prescription emergency contraceptive pills in 1998. In 2006, the FDA approved the first over-the-counter (OTC) emergency contraception option for women 18 and older. In June 2013, the FDA approved the OTC product for use by women of all ages without a prescription.
The FDA does not approve dietary supplements for any purpose. Products that have claims to treat, diagnose, prevent, or cure diseases are generally subject to regulation as drugs.
When I was 13 I would collect soda bottles and take them to the grocery and collect a deposit.
This was 1952, when grocery's were corner stores (Frankford Unity in my neighbordhood)
One bottle had a ball of yarn and a knitting needle inside. My mother told me that this was used for abortion.
The FDA doesn't have to approve every thing that goes on the market. Walk into a GNC store and see if any of the products are FDA approved.
Only prescription drugs need approval. The drug is manufactured by GenBioPro and distributed by DanCo pharmaceuicals, all that is needed is to take it out of patent, so it can be sold OTC like aspirin.
That's the solution, and it puts more money in the pockets of GenBioPro and Danco, but it also opens it up to competition. Competition is better than no income at all.
The medical abortion pills are very inexpensive. I read that they cost about $5 to make. They are made in foreign countries. I believe that they have been in use for over 20-years and their patents have expired and are now generic drugs. I think they have long been used to treat another medical condition, maybe Lupus. One shipping container full of these pills could supply the U.S. demand for years.
Women’s choice groups today buy these drugs in quantity in foreign countries and distribute them to women in America using several evasive methods. They mail the pills to women in red states from within the U.S. I understand that there are donors who contribute to this effort and charges for these pills are based upon a woman’s ability to pay. They are provided free of charge in many situations.
Cost has been a factor in determining how doctor supervised abortions are done today. Over half of all abortions are done with these medications today. This has reduced costs as well as the harassment of women at clinics. The medicine based means of ending a pregnancy is very low risk. If a woman can obtain the meds and keep quiet she in all likelihood can do this safely at home and never see a doctor. If complications occur in passing the placenta, she can access medical care as for any health condition.
The issue that drives questions about women’s health care decisions, is religious dogma. Religious extremists oppose abortion, the night after pill, invetrofertilization and virtually all birth control methods. They have no qualms about forcing compliance with their beliefs on all of American society.
I have no doubt these zealots would boycott QBC stores if they think a commercial product is being used in a way prohibited by their beliefs.
Thanks Kenneth, But it isn't just religion that drives the anti abortion campaign, it is also patriarchy. I have had heated arguments with atheist libertarians, one even said that women who abort commit murder and should be executed.
At issue is the psychological harm done to many males, when the fruit of their seed is rejected.
Rejecting THEIR seed is rejecting them, and that kind of male can only feel virile (if you get my drift) if he is in total control and the female is submissive.
The very idea that a woman has a life outside of an independent of the male is threatening.. the problem is psyc hosexual.
Women who are the most virulent and noisy anti choice advocates are
1. Catholics
2. Stepford wives or Stepford wannabe's
3. Hormonal. This is nature, Women have a biologically evolved maternal instinct,l and the idea of "killing babies" evokes a profound emotional response.
Evolved women, are beyond that, but too many women are not evolved, until they find themselves subject to the adverse affects of being an object and lesser than.
Thanks for the education on the morning after pill. I am preaching to the choir, when I complain that the bigest rip off in America is PhRMA and it's monetary effect on our politiicians.
Insulin and epinephrine are drugs long out of patent, if ever they were. Yet there is collusion within PhRMA that only two or three companies manufacture insulin and they collude, within the US to maintain the price, it cost pennies to make, and the government has not gone after them for monopolization, the best that it has done is with Biden setting a floor of$35. Those that can't afford the shot... die.
Epenephrine, the drug in the Epipen, was discovered in the 19th century, and it costs a fraction of a cent per dose. The Pen was develped by financing from DARPA, Defense Advanced Research Project Agency for delivery of a nerve agent antidote to soldiers.
However it is produced, again by a PhRMA approved monopoly, the pen costs bupkiss to produce,maybe $20, but they charge almost a $1000 for a 2 pen set.
Mylan, manufactures Epipen has had a monopoly , kt got in trouble because it was using the DARPA developed auto injector, so they redesigned the auto injector
I just did a google search and discovered that there is a low cost auto injector alternative called
Adrenaclick® ,
Good news: Now you can get an EpiPen alternative known as generic Adrenaclick for as little as $10 for a two-pack at CVS—and you don't need insurance to get it.
What's more, there are other alternatives such as generic EpiPen and Auvi-Q—a third competitor soon back on the market— that you can get for free, depending on your insurance and manufacturer coupons.
This is good news I have Medicare and the best supplemental there is, but the out of pocket cost, copay, is still outrageous.l I am going to ask my Doctor, when it is time for a refill, to prescribe the Adrenaclick.
I dated a man, briefly, who told me, with seemingly great sadness that a woman aborted his child without his permission. "I named her (the fetus) and gave her a funeral" he told me. He seemed pretty torn up and went on about it for a while and I was beginning to feel somewhat sympathetic. I asked "How did you know it was a girl?" He replied that he "just knew." When I gently asked what he named her, there was silence for a few seconds and then, "I can't remember."
He couldn't remember what he named this fetus that he claimed was so precious to him. A woman never forgets. And all at once, in that moment, it was crystal clear it was never about "the baby." It never has been about anything but control.
Thanks for the meaningful anecdote. The veneer of any concept of "women's rights" is still so thin. I submit again the book: "Other Powers" by Barbara Goldsmith, which among much more includes the gruesome history of Comstock and his Act. I was struck by the history that former slaves who happened to have penises were Constitutionally empowered to vote 50 years before citizens lacking that attribute were enfranchised.
Susan B. Anthony and friends worked with Frederick Douglas to pass the 15th Amendment, when Susan objected that it didn't include females, Douglas told her it was more important that black men get the vote, that women would get their turn later,like two more Amendments the 17th.
I am reminded that antiLGBT runs deep in the black community, especially among pastors and politicians, to wit Clarence Thomas and Mark Robinson (running for Gov of NC )
There are exceptions like Al Sharpton and Joy Reid, who are perceptive enough to realize that if you condone discrimination among one class, then you can't decry discrimination against yourself..
Maybe it is that repressed homosexual thing. Percentage wise, there seems to be more gay and trans blacks than whites, as a percentage of the population.
A Stanford study, found a positive correlation between homophobia and repressed homosexuality.
Re reading your post Suzie, The Dude lied. Women don't carry home an aborted fetus
My 1st wife had a natural abortion while sitting on the commode, It wasn't buried, it wasn't even recognizeable other than as a blob of blood. It was flushed.
I didn’t known of domineering male tyrants who see denying pregnancy or using birth control as a rejection. I have probably mansplained a time or two, but I can’t imagine a man being so unkind. I am fortunate that the meds my wife and I take are all generic and inexpensive. We buy a three month supply through Kaiser Permanente and they deliver them by mail.
You didn't know because that isn't you. You see the world through the lens of your own eyes and experience. An honest person thinks everyone is honest, a sensitive person thinks everyone is sensitive, a Trump thinks everyone is just like him.
When I was younger I thought everyone was honest and a truth teller,but I learned better at an early age.
Not all (insert noun here) are (insert noun here), but you can tell what a (Insert noun here) is,by their behaviors.
We aren't mind readers so we can't know what people think, but we can impute motives by their behaviors.
If you have a three months supply, you might consider making them available to family and friends.
I don't think it is right that the women should bear the responsibility for not expanding the mouths that one needs to feed, and the mouths and minds making demands on the future.
I didnt like condoms, for one thing they broke on me. So I took responsibility and had a vasectomy, my son, now in his 60's after two daughters, followed suit, and the YDNA of my grandfathers line, ends with him. No biggy, he and my grandmother have a gadzillion descendants anyway, just not YDNA. The Farrars have done their bit to overpopulate the world, and bring about the end of the anthropocene.. The shortest epoch in the history of the planet.100 to 200 years, unless humankind get's its act together.
In fairness it is like trench warfare. Here you are in a trench with a bolt action rifle, and a company of enemy is coming at you in single file, and all you can do is shoot the one in front of you.
It was that way, Roe V Wade, obviated the need to roll back the Comstack Act and EVERYONE forgot about it, including the pro Choice crowd. There are hundreds if not thousands of obsolete laws on the books, local and federal.
On the other hand the only way to revoke it now is to elect a Democratic Congress and President.
We have a chance in the house, but no chance in the Senate because there are more red states than blue states,and there is the filibuster and it takes 60 votes to override the filibuster or to get rid of it.
There was a brief 21 days in the interregnum in 2021 After Biden was sworn in and the Democrats still controlled the House, when they passed the Respect for Marriage Act, they could have also passed a bill legalizing abortion, but didn't.
I assume that it was because there are some conservative Democrats, probably Catholic,in Congress and the President himself is Catholic, and the Catholic Bishops of America have threatened any politician that approves abortion, and any Catholic that has one, with excommunication.
I see I shouldn't have jumped your reply: mine considerably overlaps, but I note your reference to 2021 "interregnum", (nice word!) when Dobbs doesn't come down until mid-2022, so of course nobody was in a panic, yet! Hey, those honorable people raised their right hands and said they honored precedent! Why worry?
Thom explains that there was an Appeals Court decision that "everybody" assumed settled the issue. But it wasn't even on anybody's minds, because there was Roe, and some sanity. There are thousands of stupid laws that a sane society just manages past. Also, people forget that the Dems only had Al Franken for, like 15 minutes before getting creamed in the next midterms.
The Comstock act needs to be repealed as the highest priority of Congress and the administration and the only way to do that is by electing a Democratic congress. I will do my bit.
Maybe laws that have not been applied for a long time should be automatically rescinded, unless they are reconsidered. Like look at the law (Amendment 14, Section 3) about officials involved in insurrections, which the Supreme Court has ignored anyway.
The right wingers who support forced pregnancies to my knowledge, are the ones who have never been hungry a day in their lives, and have had all of their needs met. The right wingers view the poor, to be exploited for cheap labor and tortured or exterminated if they object.
Working to end human suffering is how to serve God, and the rich religious hypocrites cause human suffering, with their greed and lying and narcissism!
Too bad more Catholics aren't more like JFK was. The taxpayers have funded phony religions in America, and this is what we get in return. Organized crime that doesn't have a clue on what the purpose of government is supposed to do.
Guns and explosives and just about everything else can be shipped interstate, but medicine that prevents human suffering for the fetus, baby, child and adult will be banned! The reptilian brains are going back to the dark ages!
Since there are more female voters than male voters and half the male voters support abortion, there is no way Trump should be elected. Unless of course America has already drank the Kool-Aid of these religious hypocrites by being indoctrinated at a young age. Mental child abuse!
Patriarchal religion doesn't work without child and domestic abuse. These things are fundamental and that is often quietly acknowledged and justified within Evangelical systems. I have heard the words "You have to keep these women in line," more than once. Here is my analysis of the women who support patriarch religions, told from my own experience.
I grew up in the 50's and 60's. My mother was a near-fundie Southern Baptist with all the trappings. Beat her kids with belts to "break their spirit for the Lord," opposed abortion, forbid me makeup, etc. Yet she was really into Tarot and the Ouija board. She didn't go to church much herself - only on Easter and Christmas, but I was only allowed out of the house for school OR church activities. Of course she was not one-dimensional, and none of them are. People loved her (even me, though not consistently- the beatings rather had a souring effect.)
She wanted rights, but constrained herself to only certain rights, having never had any at all. Rights that other women wanted weren't of importance. She could not get credit in her own name, could not get birth control pills (after they were available in the 60's) without her husband's written permission, etc. She was subjected to domestic abuse and when she resorted to calling the police, my stepfather buddied up with them with "You know hysterical these women can get." They all laughed and shared a cigarette break. Nothing was done.
I used to call her out on how her religion oppressed women, especially when she wailed about the personal injustices. I asked her why it was OK for her to whip us, often for relatively small things, but wrong if she was hit?" She just ignored me and I knew better than to continue that line of questioning until I became an adult and out of her reach. It was mostly about obedience to even the smallest demand, and even more often about her unacknowledged resentment of her restricted life. She often said, "If it weren't for having five kids, I wouldn't have to live this way." (Mind you, two of us came after she DID get access to the pill.)
Her general belief was "Well, the men need religion, otherwise they become violent barbarians. We women follow the Bible to prevent this. Plus, I love Jesus." At the core was her fear of even worse treatment if men didn't believe in a God that might someday, after everyone was dead, punish them. Seems like we lived under the iron rule OF a violent barbarian, despite the restrictions of her religion. And the insidious part of it all was that even I loved that violent barbarian, who showed no warmth but did feed and clothe me.
She believed in a weird cocktail of absurd ideas, some contradictory, and simply could not see what religion did to her three daughters. In true doublespeak, she believed the religion that crippled us, protected us. Amy Comey Barrett has said as much though in different words. I am the only one that escaped. The youngest one is now a Christ-bot, nice enough in a judgmental Kansas sort of way, and the other one believes, but is tolerant of the beliefs of others. Yet, she has suffered from disabling lifeline auto-immune diseases. The degree to which they believe has directly translated into the level of misery in their lives.
This is what Republican/Conservative women look like and it isn't new. It's always been about using force to control (other) women and children.
I think these reflections on experience are important: thanks! Sometimes I worry I "share" too much about my Mom. Oh, boy, do I relate to that "just ignored me" experience! But mostly I learned to just stifle myself. Futility. Just to lighten things up, I did half enjoy, half suffer through a couple of "road trips" with Mom in her late 80's. She was mad at the car radio not being able to pick up Rush Limbaugh all the time, anywhere! An indelible memory is the time I spent urgently scanning channels to find her her RUSH!
Perhaps Vice President Harris should get specific about this subject/history every chance she gets. Just because SCOTUS will likely take a pass at this time, she needs the voters to understand what future actions they might take. Time to show her chops as an Attorney General.
I just watched some young women interviewed on C-Span. They expressed the fact that women are half of the population and wanted to know why they aren't half of the Congress. Good. Damn. Question.
Can't think of a better reason to get rid of the filibuster---to assure women have the right to health care, family planning, and autonomy over their own bodies.
Why we aren't half of Congress? Well. gee, we only got the vote in 1920, be patient, sister! But, seriously, Trump just tore the lid off the Pandora's box of both white and male panic. I can't resist this revisit of myself here in Hartmannland: Reply in HartmannReport 7/7/23:
"Hate" is shorthand for 1) biological imperative to control incubator of male's "posterity," and 2) fear and loathing of that which makes men "weak," as in tempts them to succumb to lust.
(Set aside for time being male illusions/pretentions that human race is supposed to have risen above status of animals.) #2 is particularly the paranoia that drove Anthony Comstock, the new role model of Judge Kacsmaryk, enemy of Mifepristone. Here is one pretty good article about Comstock: https://daily.jstor.org/zombie-anthony-comstock-walks-among-us-again/ Rolling Stone has something on the "zombie" Comstock Act, but I can't get past their online roadblocks. Just before Kacsmaryk's ruling, I coincidentally had read the book: "Other Powers" by Barbara Goldsmith, which concerns the "Spiritualism" fad of the late 1800's, but turns out to be an in-depth history of the intertwined Abolitionist and Women's Suffrage movements and personalities; the general legal powerlessness of women, and Anthony Comstock. Comstock had a masturbation problem, from which flowed (sorry) a widespread pollution of male power structure already perturbed by the Abolitionists and (overlapping) Suffragettes. Voila! Mass book burning, government-licensed jackboots, and: The Comstock Act. End copy of myself from July 2023.
So Hartmann's folks heard an earful about Comstock going quite a ways back! (Just a sample.) Thom references a Comstock bio, which I am sure is very fine, but this "Other Powers" by Goldsmith is such a deep, pan-societal dive into the era, at my age and having some idea, I was shocked. Susan B. Anthony was not allowed to testify in her own trial for voting illegally. (which she did) because females were not legally competent to be witnesses! The father owned the "fruit" of the female's body, forget about custody quibbles. We have been in a pink cloud of illusion that we are anything at all CONSTITUTIONALLY!" Not the bodice on your back, darlin'. Not under the Constitution!
Sadly we are being forced to revisit Comstock, a weakling who thought he was superior. When I think of superior people I think of Harriet, Sojourner, Susan B., Lucretia, right on up to Shirley, Bella, Gloria, and now Greta.
Those women I heard on C-Span have their own strength, but women that came before are the reason the media even asked them the questions. You know, I don't remember how they were dressed, if they had pink hair, or if they had tats or piercings. I was only focused on their intelligence and their "we need to do better" attitude.
This country is becoming a real biiig mess, thanks to fake christians, selfish billionaires, corrupt scotus and GOP, maga morons and ZE BIGGEST ASSHOLE AND ROTTEN CONMAN, SERIAL RAPIST, LIAR AND DEGENERATE ORANGE PIECE OF STINKY DUNG. No need to name it anymore I believe. Lock them all ... they are demolishing democracy to replace it with pure evil fascism. Hitler would appear as an angelic altar boy when compared to the wannabe unhinged dictator in the making. Pew!
Yes Suzie before they do anything else. so very true. There was a Hitler Youth before Hindenburg made him Chancellor.
Bund Deutscher Mädel, abbreviated as BDM) was the girls' wing of the Nazi Party youth movement, the Hitler Youth it taught obedience and male superiority, that the purpose of females was to breed Aryans. Formalized after he became dictatoron Dec 12, 1935 as:
Lebensborn e.V. wa an SS-initiated, state-supported, registered association in Nazi Germany with the stated goal of increasing the number of children born who met the Nazi standards of "racially pure" and "healthy" Aryans,
On 27 June 1936, the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union made abortion illegal again, stemming largely from concerns about population growth, also in the same year they revised the Constitution, art 12, to say; If you don't work you don't eat. Both of this things, Fred Koch carried back with him from Russia, and they found their way into the Libertarian party when David Koch (born 1940) became the presidential candidate of the party.
I agree Jack, except there are no fake Christians, there is a Christianity for everyone, the Bible is ambiguous, the Catholic Church has tried to overcome the ambiguity, with their papal bulls.
The war mongering Christianity, the slaver, can resort to the Bible as easily as the liberal, peacenik.
- Ephesians 6:5 and Colossians 3:22 - call on slaves to be obedient to their masters.
Luke 19:27 he says "Bring those who would not have be reign over them and slay them"
Luke 22:36 Sell your cloak and buy a sword.
Paul was the ultimate misogynist, Women should be silent and if they wish to learn anything ask their husband
In 1973 the US Supreme Court made Roe versus Wade law protecting the rights of women to privacy in the office of their doctors. Roe versus Wade gave women the right to life liberty and once pursuit of happiness on their own terms with relation to their sexual lives and their own responsible decisions with whether to carry an errand pregnancy to term.
The Bishop's reaction to Roe v Wade was it immediate and condemnatory. Cardinal John Kroll president of the National Catholic Bishops of America denounced the decision as "bad logic and bad law" and called it an "unspeakable tragedy for this nation."B y coincidence,the Catholic Bishop's American newly formed act committee on pro-life activities held it's inaugural session the day after the court handed down the decision expressly speaking for the whole hierarchy, this Committee of Bishops " refuse to except the Court's judgment," and advised people "not to follow its reason or conclusions."
Women of America and the men that love them should finally finally follow the orders of the Catholic Bishops of America and just " not follow it's reasons or conclusions because they are so effectively Theocratic and Catholic and so totally against the Constitution of the United States, The Catholic Bishops of America in the United States should be totally disbanded, and the Catholic Church hierarchy of any kind be asked to leave the United States. After all these are all right wing citizens of Italy and have no place here. They're not only that Americans but they are anti-Americans. The Catholic Church firmly believe that the government of the United States should be under the control of the Catholic Church . They have believed this since the mid 1800s when Pope Pius IV declared against democracy in his Syllabus of Errors .
We need to Get these people out of our government. They do not belong here. That includes the six Catholic justices on the Supreme Court. They need to be gone. It is not the Catholic Church that leads our government. We are government of the people,by the people,and for the people. We need another Revolution in the United States and that Revolution is against the Catholic Church and any religious organizations that tries to run our government as well as any group that tries to protect it. The Catholic church in the United States has become a decisive evil
As a nation of free people we must "refuse to except the Court's judgment," and advised people "not to follow its reason or conclusions."
You can read more about the Catholic Church's political Antics against our government in the book called ,"Catholic Bishops in American by Timothy a Byrnes and a book called American freedom and Catholic Power by Paul Blanchard
It is said: "Rome never fell but continues to rule the world through the sister organizations of the RCC and the Mafia." Now they own the High Holy Catholic Federalist Court (HHCFC), formerly known as SCOTUS.
High Holy Catholic Federalist Court (HHCFC), formerly known as SCOTUS.
I will try to remember that and use it frequently You are so totally right
And that does make me worry about the Catholics in our government from Congress to Biden. That could be the reason no legislation legalizing abortion comes to congress
Notice that the government is not defending the FDA in the Misefpristone case, only Danco the pharmaceutical distributor. And DOJ should be defending the FDA, because it is the FDA's approval practice that is being challenged.
There are evil, greedy, power hungry people among every race and religion. I made my own decision about the Catholic Church many years ago. It was a good vehicle to pass down the teachings of Jesus Christ for two thousand years. Unfortunately, like any organization, the greedy and power hungry get control. Overall, the church has achieved more good than evil because of the vigilance of the overwhelming number of good people who are members. Personally, I it's not for me anymore, not because of SCOTUS. On Colbert Monday night, retired SCOTUS Justice Breyer pointed out that the court changed during the FDR administration away from property being most important, and said the Supreme Court needs to change according to the needs of the time.
"It was a good vehicle to pass down the teachings of Jesus Christ for two thousand years."
I disagree. It was a good vehicle for controlling populations and increasing church holdings. The teachings of Jesus Christ were merely distractions to be abandoned any time Church doctrine was threatened. For example, people with money could escape one's accountability for sins by buying papal Indulgences. Nor do I believe the church has achieved more good than evil. This is demonstrably true of such poverty holes as Mexico City where overpopulation and extremely poverty is only matched by Catholic control or evidenced by the slaving laundries in Ireland, where a girl could be interred for any act labeling her "fallen" (such as even smiling at a boy). I suspect those tortured burned at the state would agree with me.
"When I feed the poor, they call me a saint, but when I ask why the poor are hungry, they call me a communist." Dom Helder Camara.
My best example of this was "Mother" Teresa.
Many articles pointing out her often cruel behaviors. This was from the WaPo, but a quick search reveals scores, if not hundreds of similar descrptions "British medical journal the Lancet published a critical account of the care in Teresa’s facilities in 1994, and an academic Canadian study from a couple of years ago found fault with “her rather dubious way of caring for the sick, her questionable political contacts, her suspicious management of the enormous sums of money she received, and her overly dogmatic views regarding, in particular, abortion, contraception, and divorce.” Multiple accounts say that Teresa’s nuns would baptize the dying and that she had a reputation for proselytizing."
"There is something beautiful in seeing the poor accept their lot, to suffer it like Christ's Passion. The world gains much from their suffering," Mother Teresa once told the unamused Christopher Hitchens."
The church did control people and served a purpose in civilization as it was. The Jewish and Christian faiths helped civilizations evolve from human sacrifice and worshiping hundreds of cruel and savage "gods" that also were used by rulers to control populations. They taught people how they SHOULD treat one another (the golden rule and love thy neighbor) for examples. I left the church and don't believe anymore. If you want a competition about who can find the most evil and horrible acts committed by those claiming to be holy, I will win. But I still believe organized religions served a purpose in preserving history and guiding civilization. Whether continuing to rely on organized religion to guide us in the present day is an interesting question. I believe in the separation of church and state.
Missed Breyer on Colbert, but boy, "change according to needs of the time." This dredging up of Comstock and his time kind of has my hair on fire. Because the list of rights NOT guaranteed to females under the Constitution is horrifying. There's nothing in the Constitution about a female inheriting anything. There's nothing about her having any custody rights to children she gives birth to. In Comstock's time, a husband could literally lock up a pregnant wife if he thought she might get "help." The Constitution doesn't say a woman owns any paycheck she earns. The Constitution doesn't qualify a female to be a "competent" witness in court about anything. (Hello, Stormy.) (Shout out to Susan B. Anthony) Does anybody reading this not know that the Constitution does NOT require equal pay for equal work??? Community property? Not in the Constitution. Right to credit, bank account, PG&E account without DAD's signature? Not in the Constitution. Deny sex to your husband? Just laugh. Under the Constitution, females are not even dirt. It took an Amendment to even vote, 50 years after ex-slaves with penises were enfranchised.
The irony, of course, is that we are now 3,000 times more numerous on our finite planet than were our ecologically balanced sustainably sourced and biodiverse ancestral Hunter-Gatherer clan/band fellows just a few thousand years earlier, before our current swarm nearly obliterated Nature, leaving only 1-4% (depending on source) of the vertebrate biomass "wild" today. The very last thing our dear Mother Nature needs is further expansion of the human race. And those earlier ancestral clan/bands were necessarily matriarchal due to the obvious fact that men could wander far and wide in hunting parties, while the women were restricted to keeping the home fires burning/tending the dependent vulnerable young and elderly/tending the sick/gathering herbs.
Thus, it was necessarily the women who had to work together to protect the home base, constantly talk to keep the wolves at bay, and plan for the future endeavors of the clan/band. This order still exists today in many of our Native American clans/tribes. This order was destroyed when the Kurgan horseback warriors rode into today's Europe and established patriarchy by brute force (c.f., Marija Gimbutas) isolating and relegating women to their current second class position. What could go wrong? Everything?
As Thom has pointed out Dr Greeley. As the level of education of women increases, the birth rate goes down.
Education of women in Islamic countries is discouraged and prohibited in some,like Afghanistan. . The Quran teaches that the role of education for women is to serve as a guide on how to become the best wife they can be.
In Africa, Boko Haram,which means Books are forbidden, forbids the education of girls period, The Taliban will permit education enough to read and write. girls are banned from schooling beyond the age of 11.
Saudi Arabia: Education of females was forbidden until 1957, and there are now educational institutions for women, the curriculum is the same as for males, but minimally developed and there are no female architects and engineers in Saudi Arabia
If interested this pdf, Women's education in Saudi Arabia is illuminating chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1117657.pdf
Iran: Laws and regulations encourage institutionalized gender discrimination and inequality in Iran, ranging from differences in teaching boys and girls to extreme cases such as honor killings. This piece discusses how this discrimination is institutionalized in the Iranian education system. Substantial education reform is needed to address both this vicious cycle as well as for the state to fulfill its international human rights obligations. https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2022/04/04/irans-educational-system-and-the-institutionalization-of-gender-inequality/
On is almost too rich seeing pubic-hair-on- the-coke-can Thomas howling puritanical protestations against sane perspectives that recognize that there are issues far above the crippled emotional dysfunctions of the 'Comstock derangement syndrome'. But of course the bone of their beefing is control, fascist complete control, and how better than with the long proved finger-shaving shaming of the zealously radical religios providing ammo for the fascists on the highest court. Visualing burning at the stake, being put to the question, torturing natives for failing to be converted to puritan demands are not hyperbolies erroneously extended to present day America, they are simply a very real continuation of a abominal horror stretching back centuries, fed by recurring religious zeal. Snap, America.
Really . And these Republicans supported judges started this whole mess with their unconstitutional overturning of Roe v Wade. Now they are trying to justify their overturning of fifty years of settled law by bringing up the Comstock Act , written by a mad man , with whom they can identify.
Another freaking Narcissist wrote the law . Because his way is the only way . Just like Trump and his appointed Narcissistic judges.
We don’t need autocracy in this country to be furthered with this crew it’s already here.
Throw Ken Paxton and Greg Abbot on the pile. Both are autocrats and dangerous . Ken Paxtons charges in Texas were all just eliminated because he’s a powerful,corrupt criminal politician .
Who’s he remind you of ?
All you have to do to get rid of felony charges and any consequence thereof . You need to be a Republican ( Maga) you need to be white , and you will do best with
Serious corrupt practices
. Oh did I mention money , it does help
, a lot .
So tired of the Supreme corruption with the Heritage Foundation picks and the Maga mentality.
Just sick of it .
Get to vote in 2024 and work to change this bastardization of Law and Order made so accessible by the head Narcissist, DJT.
The courts cannot legislate morality - only legality. Morality is a philosophical concept. That is one reason why the Comstock Act is a joke and needs to be struck down asap. Abortion is very arguably a moral choice! It is "immoral" (a value judgment, not a fact or a universal belief) only in some religious views, and wisely, our Constitution mandates the separation of church and state (a specification currently being eroded by the vociferous "originalists").
Historically, claims regarding abortion's "immorality" rose in the later 1800s in the U.S for male power and connected financial reasons, and to subjugate women (patriarchy). When American doctors were trying hard to professionalize and solidify their authority, power and turf, they needed to cut the competition by legally abolishing the widely accepted practice of midwives (women!) performing abortions. The fledgling AMA did this by making abortion and MORAL and medical matter.
Prior to about 1880, abortions were commonly performed up until "quickening" - fetal movement sensed by Mom - which occurs in the 4th-5th month of pregnancy. Even the Catholic Church was in line with this! The universal belief: life begins at quickening.
The patriarchal and bigoted/racist impetus arose at that time too - during floods of immigrants to this country. The fact that mainly white Protestant middle and upper class women were having abortions troubled the male counterparts who feared that they, the 'real Americans,' would be swamped out by inferior interlopers. Of course, keeping women as birth machines also benefited patriarchal aspirations. See https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/23/health/abortion-history-in-united-states/index.html.
I wish I had something useful to add to this. The conservative Injustices squatting on SCOTUS need to vacate themselves from the high court for the sake of American democracy. They will bend and break anything their owners wish them to. Read "The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America" if you need a little more than just my word on it.
Thom Hartmann is the world's best diagnostician of a democracy's health - he knows the anatomy and physiology of this sacred body more thoroughly than anyone I could possibly imagine. And his bedside manner is next-level in discussing the status of the patient, as well as what steps need to be taken on the forever road to recovery.
I am proceeding on assumption that "Flying Spaghetti Monster" is aka "god?" In which case I think your characterization "biggest abortionist" has been validated by a lot of real-life evidence more widely known since "Dobbs." Arizona State Congresswoman Burch, pregnant with a non-viable conception, also is an ob-gyn MD, and stated that unsuccessful conceptions are common. And even before, it's not a big secret that uncountable fertilizations pass by naturally. Thanks to the Supreme Court, there's been much more of a spotlight on how much how often goes wrong with human procreation. Like you say: biggest murderer of the unborn is: (well, "Flying Spaghetti?) dare I call it god?
As I said before the two main ways to not go extinct by not reproducing with your own prodigy is life time mate or groups of women being exchanged for other outside groups of females. Only one strategy needs men to control women. I guess the GOP want sex with women who have no right to refuse. So much for traditional family values in favor of the ways of hunter gathers.
I think we should ask the Supreme Court’s view about vegetarianism. Should people be required to eat a plant based diet or should people be allowed to eat meat occasionally? I am thinking of repainting my interior. I can’t decide on a color. Maybe the Supreme Court should dictate the color for all interior walls in America.
Who gives a damn what they think about Mifepristone? If you want to end a pregnancy this medicine will always be available through a black-market just like marijuana was before it was legalized and as alcohol was during prohibition. The court and government has no roll here other than to protect our right to decide without coercion.
Theocrats don't see the world that way. Force is all they know; all they have ever known and in their day, have had great fun burning people (mostly women) who don't agree. If they want us all vegans, they'd do that. But they are more likely to force us all to eat meat on behalf of the meat producers. Make no mistake, Thomas, his crazy wife, and Alito would find a way to burn us at the stake if they could. They're working on it.
You are right about the black market. But that will drive up the costs and the risks.
"Who gives a damn what they think about Mefipristone?" Really?
Having to rely on the black market means having to contravene federal law, with the possibility of a prison sentence of up to 5 years (or more), plus a fine of up to $250,000, in order to exercise what, from Roe to Dobbs, was a constitutional right.
Do you think that our judicial system can handle 100’s of thousands of women who choose civil disobedience? Who do you think the AlCapone for mifepristone will be? I am sorry but this situation to me is a farce much like Putin’s election. We as citizens should not put up with coercion by our government on matters of personal choice. People need to create “good trouble” as said by John Lewis.
Thanks for criticizing, in my opinion, a cavalier statement. The black market is expensive, as well as illegal! It would again make abortion available only to women of means - as has been the case throughout banned periods of time. Women with money could always obtain an abortion, and always will - no matter what the forced birthers rule in the Supremely Corrupt Court.
Agree 100%
I was being sarcastic about vegetarianism and interior wall colors. I was trying to use them as examples of ridiculous topics on which courts should not rule.
Oh, I get that and I was being the same. Both metaphors point out the arbitrary nature of their demands.
Not arbitrary! Women need to be controlled and poor women need to be killed off with complications of pregnancy, since they are often dark-skinned and clearly promiscuous. USA is a Christian nation and the Flying Spaghetti Monster and his only begotten son Meatball speak directly to the Christian Nationals. If they can get away with it, including bloodbaths, falsifying elections and hanging a VP, the FSM and Meatball meant for it to happen. It's all about control. That's why dictatorships are so appealing. Even if you are led to the slaughter, at least you have a white male with the Power of Crazy leading! (no insult to thoughtful white males intended -- my son, brother and my partner are in that group)
I decided not to include in my post the idea of filing a lawsuit to require primary school teachers to teach cursive. To make sure that cursive is taught people should appeal the decision all the way to the Supreme Court so they in their omniscience can decide the issue.
As I said above. GenBioPro which manufacturers the drug, should take it out of patent, and sell it OTC like Aspirin. They will still make money, probably more, but they cut out the AMA which loses money, writing prescriptions.
The loss of profits made from prescription sales, will be offset by the increase in sales once it is OTC.
How many prescription drugs whose patents expired, are not sold OTC.?
Interesting idea, but doesn't FDA have to approve OTC? It took decades to get contraception pills OTC.
Maybe it could be sold as a supplement for hanky panky?
I responded before I read your comment, what a great idea.
Lol.
I don't know Suzie, but consider Levonorgestrel EC pills were the first hormonal contraception to have switched from prescription to OTC status, in 2006.
Your question caused me to google.When did emergency contraception become over the counter?
The FDA first approved prescription emergency contraceptive pills in 1998. In 2006, the FDA approved the first over-the-counter (OTC) emergency contraception option for women 18 and older. In June 2013, the FDA approved the OTC product for use by women of all ages without a prescription.
The FDA does not approve dietary supplements for any purpose. Products that have claims to treat, diagnose, prevent, or cure diseases are generally subject to regulation as drugs.
Is pregnancy a disease?
I know that where there is a will there is a way.
When I was 13 I would collect soda bottles and take them to the grocery and collect a deposit.
This was 1952, when grocery's were corner stores (Frankford Unity in my neighbordhood)
One bottle had a ball of yarn and a knitting needle inside. My mother told me that this was used for abortion.
The FDA doesn't have to approve every thing that goes on the market. Walk into a GNC store and see if any of the products are FDA approved.
Only prescription drugs need approval. The drug is manufactured by GenBioPro and distributed by DanCo pharmaceuicals, all that is needed is to take it out of patent, so it can be sold OTC like aspirin.
That's the solution, and it puts more money in the pockets of GenBioPro and Danco, but it also opens it up to competition. Competition is better than no income at all.
The medical abortion pills are very inexpensive. I read that they cost about $5 to make. They are made in foreign countries. I believe that they have been in use for over 20-years and their patents have expired and are now generic drugs. I think they have long been used to treat another medical condition, maybe Lupus. One shipping container full of these pills could supply the U.S. demand for years.
Women’s choice groups today buy these drugs in quantity in foreign countries and distribute them to women in America using several evasive methods. They mail the pills to women in red states from within the U.S. I understand that there are donors who contribute to this effort and charges for these pills are based upon a woman’s ability to pay. They are provided free of charge in many situations.
Cost has been a factor in determining how doctor supervised abortions are done today. Over half of all abortions are done with these medications today. This has reduced costs as well as the harassment of women at clinics. The medicine based means of ending a pregnancy is very low risk. If a woman can obtain the meds and keep quiet she in all likelihood can do this safely at home and never see a doctor. If complications occur in passing the placenta, she can access medical care as for any health condition.
The issue that drives questions about women’s health care decisions, is religious dogma. Religious extremists oppose abortion, the night after pill, invetrofertilization and virtually all birth control methods. They have no qualms about forcing compliance with their beliefs on all of American society.
I have no doubt these zealots would boycott QBC stores if they think a commercial product is being used in a way prohibited by their beliefs.
Thanks Kenneth, But it isn't just religion that drives the anti abortion campaign, it is also patriarchy. I have had heated arguments with atheist libertarians, one even said that women who abort commit murder and should be executed.
At issue is the psychological harm done to many males, when the fruit of their seed is rejected.
Rejecting THEIR seed is rejecting them, and that kind of male can only feel virile (if you get my drift) if he is in total control and the female is submissive.
The very idea that a woman has a life outside of an independent of the male is threatening.. the problem is psyc hosexual.
Women who are the most virulent and noisy anti choice advocates are
1. Catholics
2. Stepford wives or Stepford wannabe's
3. Hormonal. This is nature, Women have a biologically evolved maternal instinct,l and the idea of "killing babies" evokes a profound emotional response.
Evolved women, are beyond that, but too many women are not evolved, until they find themselves subject to the adverse affects of being an object and lesser than.
Thanks for the education on the morning after pill. I am preaching to the choir, when I complain that the bigest rip off in America is PhRMA and it's monetary effect on our politiicians.
Insulin and epinephrine are drugs long out of patent, if ever they were. Yet there is collusion within PhRMA that only two or three companies manufacture insulin and they collude, within the US to maintain the price, it cost pennies to make, and the government has not gone after them for monopolization, the best that it has done is with Biden setting a floor of$35. Those that can't afford the shot... die.
Epenephrine, the drug in the Epipen, was discovered in the 19th century, and it costs a fraction of a cent per dose. The Pen was develped by financing from DARPA, Defense Advanced Research Project Agency for delivery of a nerve agent antidote to soldiers.
However it is produced, again by a PhRMA approved monopoly, the pen costs bupkiss to produce,maybe $20, but they charge almost a $1000 for a 2 pen set.
Mylan, manufactures Epipen has had a monopoly , kt got in trouble because it was using the DARPA developed auto injector, so they redesigned the auto injector
I just did a google search and discovered that there is a low cost auto injector alternative called
Adrenaclick® ,
Good news: Now you can get an EpiPen alternative known as generic Adrenaclick for as little as $10 for a two-pack at CVS—and you don't need insurance to get it.
Per consumer reports: https://www.consumerreports.org/drug-prices/epipen-alternative-that-costs-just-10-dollars/
What's more, there are other alternatives such as generic EpiPen and Auvi-Q—a third competitor soon back on the market— that you can get for free, depending on your insurance and manufacturer coupons.
This is good news I have Medicare and the best supplemental there is, but the out of pocket cost, copay, is still outrageous.l I am going to ask my Doctor, when it is time for a refill, to prescribe the Adrenaclick.
I dated a man, briefly, who told me, with seemingly great sadness that a woman aborted his child without his permission. "I named her (the fetus) and gave her a funeral" he told me. He seemed pretty torn up and went on about it for a while and I was beginning to feel somewhat sympathetic. I asked "How did you know it was a girl?" He replied that he "just knew." When I gently asked what he named her, there was silence for a few seconds and then, "I can't remember."
He couldn't remember what he named this fetus that he claimed was so precious to him. A woman never forgets. And all at once, in that moment, it was crystal clear it was never about "the baby." It never has been about anything but control.
Thanks for the meaningful anecdote. The veneer of any concept of "women's rights" is still so thin. I submit again the book: "Other Powers" by Barbara Goldsmith, which among much more includes the gruesome history of Comstock and his Act. I was struck by the history that former slaves who happened to have penises were Constitutionally empowered to vote 50 years before citizens lacking that attribute were enfranchised.
Susan B. Anthony and friends worked with Frederick Douglas to pass the 15th Amendment, when Susan objected that it didn't include females, Douglas told her it was more important that black men get the vote, that women would get their turn later,like two more Amendments the 17th.
I am reminded that antiLGBT runs deep in the black community, especially among pastors and politicians, to wit Clarence Thomas and Mark Robinson (running for Gov of NC )
There are exceptions like Al Sharpton and Joy Reid, who are perceptive enough to realize that if you condone discrimination among one class, then you can't decry discrimination against yourself..
Maybe it is that repressed homosexual thing. Percentage wise, there seems to be more gay and trans blacks than whites, as a percentage of the population.
A Stanford study, found a positive correlation between homophobia and repressed homosexuality.
Thanks for the recommendation. I will look it up.
Re reading your post Suzie, The Dude lied. Women don't carry home an aborted fetus
My 1st wife had a natural abortion while sitting on the commode, It wasn't buried, it wasn't even recognizeable other than as a blob of blood. It was flushed.
The "funeral" was purely symbolic. There were no remains.
I didn’t known of domineering male tyrants who see denying pregnancy or using birth control as a rejection. I have probably mansplained a time or two, but I can’t imagine a man being so unkind. I am fortunate that the meds my wife and I take are all generic and inexpensive. We buy a three month supply through Kaiser Permanente and they deliver them by mail.
You didn't know because that isn't you. You see the world through the lens of your own eyes and experience. An honest person thinks everyone is honest, a sensitive person thinks everyone is sensitive, a Trump thinks everyone is just like him.
When I was younger I thought everyone was honest and a truth teller,but I learned better at an early age.
Not all (insert noun here) are (insert noun here), but you can tell what a (Insert noun here) is,by their behaviors.
We aren't mind readers so we can't know what people think, but we can impute motives by their behaviors.
If you have a three months supply, you might consider making them available to family and friends.
I don't think it is right that the women should bear the responsibility for not expanding the mouths that one needs to feed, and the mouths and minds making demands on the future.
I didnt like condoms, for one thing they broke on me. So I took responsibility and had a vasectomy, my son, now in his 60's after two daughters, followed suit, and the YDNA of my grandfathers line, ends with him. No biggy, he and my grandmother have a gadzillion descendants anyway, just not YDNA. The Farrars have done their bit to overpopulate the world, and bring about the end of the anthropocene.. The shortest epoch in the history of the planet.100 to 200 years, unless humankind get's its act together.
The Comstock Act was just another law Democrats should have disposed of when they had the chance....but ignored.
In fairness it is like trench warfare. Here you are in a trench with a bolt action rifle, and a company of enemy is coming at you in single file, and all you can do is shoot the one in front of you.
It was that way, Roe V Wade, obviated the need to roll back the Comstack Act and EVERYONE forgot about it, including the pro Choice crowd. There are hundreds if not thousands of obsolete laws on the books, local and federal.
On the other hand the only way to revoke it now is to elect a Democratic Congress and President.
We have a chance in the house, but no chance in the Senate because there are more red states than blue states,and there is the filibuster and it takes 60 votes to override the filibuster or to get rid of it.
There was a brief 21 days in the interregnum in 2021 After Biden was sworn in and the Democrats still controlled the House, when they passed the Respect for Marriage Act, they could have also passed a bill legalizing abortion, but didn't.
I assume that it was because there are some conservative Democrats, probably Catholic,in Congress and the President himself is Catholic, and the Catholic Bishops of America have threatened any politician that approves abortion, and any Catholic that has one, with excommunication.
I see I shouldn't have jumped your reply: mine considerably overlaps, but I note your reference to 2021 "interregnum", (nice word!) when Dobbs doesn't come down until mid-2022, so of course nobody was in a panic, yet! Hey, those honorable people raised their right hands and said they honored precedent! Why worry?
Thom explains that there was an Appeals Court decision that "everybody" assumed settled the issue. But it wasn't even on anybody's minds, because there was Roe, and some sanity. There are thousands of stupid laws that a sane society just manages past. Also, people forget that the Dems only had Al Franken for, like 15 minutes before getting creamed in the next midterms.
The Comstock act needs to be repealed as the highest priority of Congress and the administration and the only way to do that is by electing a Democratic congress. I will do my bit.
Maybe laws that have not been applied for a long time should be automatically rescinded, unless they are reconsidered. Like look at the law (Amendment 14, Section 3) about officials involved in insurrections, which the Supreme Court has ignored anyway.
It boggles the mind that this debate persists to this day. A perfect case for the separation of Church and State.
The right wingers who support forced pregnancies to my knowledge, are the ones who have never been hungry a day in their lives, and have had all of their needs met. The right wingers view the poor, to be exploited for cheap labor and tortured or exterminated if they object.
Working to end human suffering is how to serve God, and the rich religious hypocrites cause human suffering, with their greed and lying and narcissism!
Too bad more Catholics aren't more like JFK was. The taxpayers have funded phony religions in America, and this is what we get in return. Organized crime that doesn't have a clue on what the purpose of government is supposed to do.
Guns and explosives and just about everything else can be shipped interstate, but medicine that prevents human suffering for the fetus, baby, child and adult will be banned! The reptilian brains are going back to the dark ages!
Since there are more female voters than male voters and half the male voters support abortion, there is no way Trump should be elected. Unless of course America has already drank the Kool-Aid of these religious hypocrites by being indoctrinated at a young age. Mental child abuse!
Long rant coming. Pass it by if it irritates you.
Patriarchal religion doesn't work without child and domestic abuse. These things are fundamental and that is often quietly acknowledged and justified within Evangelical systems. I have heard the words "You have to keep these women in line," more than once. Here is my analysis of the women who support patriarch religions, told from my own experience.
I grew up in the 50's and 60's. My mother was a near-fundie Southern Baptist with all the trappings. Beat her kids with belts to "break their spirit for the Lord," opposed abortion, forbid me makeup, etc. Yet she was really into Tarot and the Ouija board. She didn't go to church much herself - only on Easter and Christmas, but I was only allowed out of the house for school OR church activities. Of course she was not one-dimensional, and none of them are. People loved her (even me, though not consistently- the beatings rather had a souring effect.)
She wanted rights, but constrained herself to only certain rights, having never had any at all. Rights that other women wanted weren't of importance. She could not get credit in her own name, could not get birth control pills (after they were available in the 60's) without her husband's written permission, etc. She was subjected to domestic abuse and when she resorted to calling the police, my stepfather buddied up with them with "You know hysterical these women can get." They all laughed and shared a cigarette break. Nothing was done.
I used to call her out on how her religion oppressed women, especially when she wailed about the personal injustices. I asked her why it was OK for her to whip us, often for relatively small things, but wrong if she was hit?" She just ignored me and I knew better than to continue that line of questioning until I became an adult and out of her reach. It was mostly about obedience to even the smallest demand, and even more often about her unacknowledged resentment of her restricted life. She often said, "If it weren't for having five kids, I wouldn't have to live this way." (Mind you, two of us came after she DID get access to the pill.)
Her general belief was "Well, the men need religion, otherwise they become violent barbarians. We women follow the Bible to prevent this. Plus, I love Jesus." At the core was her fear of even worse treatment if men didn't believe in a God that might someday, after everyone was dead, punish them. Seems like we lived under the iron rule OF a violent barbarian, despite the restrictions of her religion. And the insidious part of it all was that even I loved that violent barbarian, who showed no warmth but did feed and clothe me.
She believed in a weird cocktail of absurd ideas, some contradictory, and simply could not see what religion did to her three daughters. In true doublespeak, she believed the religion that crippled us, protected us. Amy Comey Barrett has said as much though in different words. I am the only one that escaped. The youngest one is now a Christ-bot, nice enough in a judgmental Kansas sort of way, and the other one believes, but is tolerant of the beliefs of others. Yet, she has suffered from disabling lifeline auto-immune diseases. The degree to which they believe has directly translated into the level of misery in their lives.
This is what Republican/Conservative women look like and it isn't new. It's always been about using force to control (other) women and children.
I think these reflections on experience are important: thanks! Sometimes I worry I "share" too much about my Mom. Oh, boy, do I relate to that "just ignored me" experience! But mostly I learned to just stifle myself. Futility. Just to lighten things up, I did half enjoy, half suffer through a couple of "road trips" with Mom in her late 80's. She was mad at the car radio not being able to pick up Rush Limbaugh all the time, anywhere! An indelible memory is the time I spent urgently scanning channels to find her her RUSH!
Rush Limbaugh destroyed my marriage. I suspect I am not the only one.
Perhaps Vice President Harris should get specific about this subject/history every chance she gets. Just because SCOTUS will likely take a pass at this time, she needs the voters to understand what future actions they might take. Time to show her chops as an Attorney General.
I just watched some young women interviewed on C-Span. They expressed the fact that women are half of the population and wanted to know why they aren't half of the Congress. Good. Damn. Question.
Can't think of a better reason to get rid of the filibuster---to assure women have the right to health care, family planning, and autonomy over their own bodies.
Why we aren't half of Congress? Well. gee, we only got the vote in 1920, be patient, sister! But, seriously, Trump just tore the lid off the Pandora's box of both white and male panic. I can't resist this revisit of myself here in Hartmannland: Reply in HartmannReport 7/7/23:
"Hate" is shorthand for 1) biological imperative to control incubator of male's "posterity," and 2) fear and loathing of that which makes men "weak," as in tempts them to succumb to lust.
(Set aside for time being male illusions/pretentions that human race is supposed to have risen above status of animals.) #2 is particularly the paranoia that drove Anthony Comstock, the new role model of Judge Kacsmaryk, enemy of Mifepristone. Here is one pretty good article about Comstock: https://daily.jstor.org/zombie-anthony-comstock-walks-among-us-again/ Rolling Stone has something on the "zombie" Comstock Act, but I can't get past their online roadblocks. Just before Kacsmaryk's ruling, I coincidentally had read the book: "Other Powers" by Barbara Goldsmith, which concerns the "Spiritualism" fad of the late 1800's, but turns out to be an in-depth history of the intertwined Abolitionist and Women's Suffrage movements and personalities; the general legal powerlessness of women, and Anthony Comstock. Comstock had a masturbation problem, from which flowed (sorry) a widespread pollution of male power structure already perturbed by the Abolitionists and (overlapping) Suffragettes. Voila! Mass book burning, government-licensed jackboots, and: The Comstock Act. End copy of myself from July 2023.
So Hartmann's folks heard an earful about Comstock going quite a ways back! (Just a sample.) Thom references a Comstock bio, which I am sure is very fine, but this "Other Powers" by Goldsmith is such a deep, pan-societal dive into the era, at my age and having some idea, I was shocked. Susan B. Anthony was not allowed to testify in her own trial for voting illegally. (which she did) because females were not legally competent to be witnesses! The father owned the "fruit" of the female's body, forget about custody quibbles. We have been in a pink cloud of illusion that we are anything at all CONSTITUTIONALLY!" Not the bodice on your back, darlin'. Not under the Constitution!
Well worth the replay, Mmrose!
Sadly we are being forced to revisit Comstock, a weakling who thought he was superior. When I think of superior people I think of Harriet, Sojourner, Susan B., Lucretia, right on up to Shirley, Bella, Gloria, and now Greta.
Those women I heard on C-Span have their own strength, but women that came before are the reason the media even asked them the questions. You know, I don't remember how they were dressed, if they had pink hair, or if they had tats or piercings. I was only focused on their intelligence and their "we need to do better" attitude.
Add Medea (Benjamin) The bodice thing was just a play about "you don't own the shirt on your back."
Absolutely get rid of the damn filibuster! It has been used to block common good legislation, like voting rights.
This country is becoming a real biiig mess, thanks to fake christians, selfish billionaires, corrupt scotus and GOP, maga morons and ZE BIGGEST ASSHOLE AND ROTTEN CONMAN, SERIAL RAPIST, LIAR AND DEGENERATE ORANGE PIECE OF STINKY DUNG. No need to name it anymore I believe. Lock them all ... they are demolishing democracy to replace it with pure evil fascism. Hitler would appear as an angelic altar boy when compared to the wannabe unhinged dictator in the making. Pew!
First thing fascists do is use an iron fist to squeeze the breath out of women.
Yes Suzie before they do anything else. so very true. There was a Hitler Youth before Hindenburg made him Chancellor.
Bund Deutscher Mädel, abbreviated as BDM) was the girls' wing of the Nazi Party youth movement, the Hitler Youth it taught obedience and male superiority, that the purpose of females was to breed Aryans. Formalized after he became dictatoron Dec 12, 1935 as:
Lebensborn e.V. wa an SS-initiated, state-supported, registered association in Nazi Germany with the stated goal of increasing the number of children born who met the Nazi standards of "racially pure" and "healthy" Aryans,
On 27 June 1936, the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union made abortion illegal again, stemming largely from concerns about population growth, also in the same year they revised the Constitution, art 12, to say; If you don't work you don't eat. Both of this things, Fred Koch carried back with him from Russia, and they found their way into the Libertarian party when David Koch (born 1940) became the presidential candidate of the party.
I agree Jack, except there are no fake Christians, there is a Christianity for everyone, the Bible is ambiguous, the Catholic Church has tried to overcome the ambiguity, with their papal bulls.
The war mongering Christianity, the slaver, can resort to the Bible as easily as the liberal, peacenik.
- Ephesians 6:5 and Colossians 3:22 - call on slaves to be obedient to their masters.
Luke 19:27 he says "Bring those who would not have be reign over them and slay them"
Luke 22:36 Sell your cloak and buy a sword.
Paul was the ultimate misogynist, Women should be silent and if they wish to learn anything ask their husband
In 1973 the US Supreme Court made Roe versus Wade law protecting the rights of women to privacy in the office of their doctors. Roe versus Wade gave women the right to life liberty and once pursuit of happiness on their own terms with relation to their sexual lives and their own responsible decisions with whether to carry an errand pregnancy to term.
The Bishop's reaction to Roe v Wade was it immediate and condemnatory. Cardinal John Kroll president of the National Catholic Bishops of America denounced the decision as "bad logic and bad law" and called it an "unspeakable tragedy for this nation."B y coincidence,the Catholic Bishop's American newly formed act committee on pro-life activities held it's inaugural session the day after the court handed down the decision expressly speaking for the whole hierarchy, this Committee of Bishops " refuse to except the Court's judgment," and advised people "not to follow its reason or conclusions."
Women of America and the men that love them should finally finally follow the orders of the Catholic Bishops of America and just " not follow it's reasons or conclusions because they are so effectively Theocratic and Catholic and so totally against the Constitution of the United States, The Catholic Bishops of America in the United States should be totally disbanded, and the Catholic Church hierarchy of any kind be asked to leave the United States. After all these are all right wing citizens of Italy and have no place here. They're not only that Americans but they are anti-Americans. The Catholic Church firmly believe that the government of the United States should be under the control of the Catholic Church . They have believed this since the mid 1800s when Pope Pius IV declared against democracy in his Syllabus of Errors .
We need to Get these people out of our government. They do not belong here. That includes the six Catholic justices on the Supreme Court. They need to be gone. It is not the Catholic Church that leads our government. We are government of the people,by the people,and for the people. We need another Revolution in the United States and that Revolution is against the Catholic Church and any religious organizations that tries to run our government as well as any group that tries to protect it. The Catholic church in the United States has become a decisive evil
As a nation of free people we must "refuse to except the Court's judgment," and advised people "not to follow its reason or conclusions."
You can read more about the Catholic Church's political Antics against our government in the book called ,"Catholic Bishops in American by Timothy a Byrnes and a book called American freedom and Catholic Power by Paul Blanchard
It is said: "Rome never fell but continues to rule the world through the sister organizations of the RCC and the Mafia." Now they own the High Holy Catholic Federalist Court (HHCFC), formerly known as SCOTUS.
I love you Suzie, what a sharp mind.
High Holy Catholic Federalist Court (HHCFC), formerly known as SCOTUS.
I will try to remember that and use it frequently You are so totally right
And that does make me worry about the Catholics in our government from Congress to Biden. That could be the reason no legislation legalizing abortion comes to congress
Notice that the government is not defending the FDA in the Misefpristone case, only Danco the pharmaceutical distributor. And DOJ should be defending the FDA, because it is the FDA's approval practice that is being challenged.
Hmmmmmm.
There are evil, greedy, power hungry people among every race and religion. I made my own decision about the Catholic Church many years ago. It was a good vehicle to pass down the teachings of Jesus Christ for two thousand years. Unfortunately, like any organization, the greedy and power hungry get control. Overall, the church has achieved more good than evil because of the vigilance of the overwhelming number of good people who are members. Personally, I it's not for me anymore, not because of SCOTUS. On Colbert Monday night, retired SCOTUS Justice Breyer pointed out that the court changed during the FDR administration away from property being most important, and said the Supreme Court needs to change according to the needs of the time.
"It was a good vehicle to pass down the teachings of Jesus Christ for two thousand years."
I disagree. It was a good vehicle for controlling populations and increasing church holdings. The teachings of Jesus Christ were merely distractions to be abandoned any time Church doctrine was threatened. For example, people with money could escape one's accountability for sins by buying papal Indulgences. Nor do I believe the church has achieved more good than evil. This is demonstrably true of such poverty holes as Mexico City where overpopulation and extremely poverty is only matched by Catholic control or evidenced by the slaving laundries in Ireland, where a girl could be interred for any act labeling her "fallen" (such as even smiling at a boy). I suspect those tortured burned at the state would agree with me.
"When I feed the poor, they call me a saint, but when I ask why the poor are hungry, they call me a communist." Dom Helder Camara.
My best example of this was "Mother" Teresa.
Many articles pointing out her often cruel behaviors. This was from the WaPo, but a quick search reveals scores, if not hundreds of similar descrptions "British medical journal the Lancet published a critical account of the care in Teresa’s facilities in 1994, and an academic Canadian study from a couple of years ago found fault with “her rather dubious way of caring for the sick, her questionable political contacts, her suspicious management of the enormous sums of money she received, and her overly dogmatic views regarding, in particular, abortion, contraception, and divorce.” Multiple accounts say that Teresa’s nuns would baptize the dying and that she had a reputation for proselytizing."
"There is something beautiful in seeing the poor accept their lot, to suffer it like Christ's Passion. The world gains much from their suffering," Mother Teresa once told the unamused Christopher Hitchens."
The church did control people and served a purpose in civilization as it was. The Jewish and Christian faiths helped civilizations evolve from human sacrifice and worshiping hundreds of cruel and savage "gods" that also were used by rulers to control populations. They taught people how they SHOULD treat one another (the golden rule and love thy neighbor) for examples. I left the church and don't believe anymore. If you want a competition about who can find the most evil and horrible acts committed by those claiming to be holy, I will win. But I still believe organized religions served a purpose in preserving history and guiding civilization. Whether continuing to rely on organized religion to guide us in the present day is an interesting question. I believe in the separation of church and state.
We share many points of view; we can respectfully disagree on religion.
Missed Breyer on Colbert, but boy, "change according to needs of the time." This dredging up of Comstock and his time kind of has my hair on fire. Because the list of rights NOT guaranteed to females under the Constitution is horrifying. There's nothing in the Constitution about a female inheriting anything. There's nothing about her having any custody rights to children she gives birth to. In Comstock's time, a husband could literally lock up a pregnant wife if he thought she might get "help." The Constitution doesn't say a woman owns any paycheck she earns. The Constitution doesn't qualify a female to be a "competent" witness in court about anything. (Hello, Stormy.) (Shout out to Susan B. Anthony) Does anybody reading this not know that the Constitution does NOT require equal pay for equal work??? Community property? Not in the Constitution. Right to credit, bank account, PG&E account without DAD's signature? Not in the Constitution. Deny sex to your husband? Just laugh. Under the Constitution, females are not even dirt. It took an Amendment to even vote, 50 years after ex-slaves with penises were enfranchised.
The irony, of course, is that we are now 3,000 times more numerous on our finite planet than were our ecologically balanced sustainably sourced and biodiverse ancestral Hunter-Gatherer clan/band fellows just a few thousand years earlier, before our current swarm nearly obliterated Nature, leaving only 1-4% (depending on source) of the vertebrate biomass "wild" today. The very last thing our dear Mother Nature needs is further expansion of the human race. And those earlier ancestral clan/bands were necessarily matriarchal due to the obvious fact that men could wander far and wide in hunting parties, while the women were restricted to keeping the home fires burning/tending the dependent vulnerable young and elderly/tending the sick/gathering herbs.
Thus, it was necessarily the women who had to work together to protect the home base, constantly talk to keep the wolves at bay, and plan for the future endeavors of the clan/band. This order still exists today in many of our Native American clans/tribes. This order was destroyed when the Kurgan horseback warriors rode into today's Europe and established patriarchy by brute force (c.f., Marija Gimbutas) isolating and relegating women to their current second class position. What could go wrong? Everything?
As Thom has pointed out Dr Greeley. As the level of education of women increases, the birth rate goes down.
Education of women in Islamic countries is discouraged and prohibited in some,like Afghanistan. . The Quran teaches that the role of education for women is to serve as a guide on how to become the best wife they can be.
In Africa, Boko Haram,which means Books are forbidden, forbids the education of girls period, The Taliban will permit education enough to read and write. girls are banned from schooling beyond the age of 11.
Saudi Arabia: Education of females was forbidden until 1957, and there are now educational institutions for women, the curriculum is the same as for males, but minimally developed and there are no female architects and engineers in Saudi Arabia
If interested this pdf, Women's education in Saudi Arabia is illuminating chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1117657.pdf
Iran: Laws and regulations encourage institutionalized gender discrimination and inequality in Iran, ranging from differences in teaching boys and girls to extreme cases such as honor killings. This piece discusses how this discrimination is institutionalized in the Iranian education system. Substantial education reform is needed to address both this vicious cycle as well as for the state to fulfill its international human rights obligations. https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2022/04/04/irans-educational-system-and-the-institutionalization-of-gender-inequality/
On is almost too rich seeing pubic-hair-on- the-coke-can Thomas howling puritanical protestations against sane perspectives that recognize that there are issues far above the crippled emotional dysfunctions of the 'Comstock derangement syndrome'. But of course the bone of their beefing is control, fascist complete control, and how better than with the long proved finger-shaving shaming of the zealously radical religios providing ammo for the fascists on the highest court. Visualing burning at the stake, being put to the question, torturing natives for failing to be converted to puritan demands are not hyperbolies erroneously extended to present day America, they are simply a very real continuation of a abominal horror stretching back centuries, fed by recurring religious zeal. Snap, America.
Really . And these Republicans supported judges started this whole mess with their unconstitutional overturning of Roe v Wade. Now they are trying to justify their overturning of fifty years of settled law by bringing up the Comstock Act , written by a mad man , with whom they can identify.
Another freaking Narcissist wrote the law . Because his way is the only way . Just like Trump and his appointed Narcissistic judges.
We don’t need autocracy in this country to be furthered with this crew it’s already here.
Throw Ken Paxton and Greg Abbot on the pile. Both are autocrats and dangerous . Ken Paxtons charges in Texas were all just eliminated because he’s a powerful,corrupt criminal politician .
Who’s he remind you of ?
All you have to do to get rid of felony charges and any consequence thereof . You need to be a Republican ( Maga) you need to be white , and you will do best with
Serious corrupt practices
. Oh did I mention money , it does help
, a lot .
So tired of the Supreme corruption with the Heritage Foundation picks and the Maga mentality.
Just sick of it .
Get to vote in 2024 and work to change this bastardization of Law and Order made so accessible by the head Narcissist, DJT.
These misogynists and theocrats are publicly shaming themselves. Effectively making sure Christo Nationalism is politically toxic.
The courts cannot legislate morality - only legality. Morality is a philosophical concept. That is one reason why the Comstock Act is a joke and needs to be struck down asap. Abortion is very arguably a moral choice! It is "immoral" (a value judgment, not a fact or a universal belief) only in some religious views, and wisely, our Constitution mandates the separation of church and state (a specification currently being eroded by the vociferous "originalists").
Historically, claims regarding abortion's "immorality" rose in the later 1800s in the U.S for male power and connected financial reasons, and to subjugate women (patriarchy). When American doctors were trying hard to professionalize and solidify their authority, power and turf, they needed to cut the competition by legally abolishing the widely accepted practice of midwives (women!) performing abortions. The fledgling AMA did this by making abortion and MORAL and medical matter.
Prior to about 1880, abortions were commonly performed up until "quickening" - fetal movement sensed by Mom - which occurs in the 4th-5th month of pregnancy. Even the Catholic Church was in line with this! The universal belief: life begins at quickening.
The patriarchal and bigoted/racist impetus arose at that time too - during floods of immigrants to this country. The fact that mainly white Protestant middle and upper class women were having abortions troubled the male counterparts who feared that they, the 'real Americans,' would be swamped out by inferior interlopers. Of course, keeping women as birth machines also benefited patriarchal aspirations. See https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/23/health/abortion-history-in-united-states/index.html.
I wish I had something useful to add to this. The conservative Injustices squatting on SCOTUS need to vacate themselves from the high court for the sake of American democracy. They will bend and break anything their owners wish them to. Read "The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America" if you need a little more than just my word on it.
Thom Hartmann is the world's best diagnostician of a democracy's health - he knows the anatomy and physiology of this sacred body more thoroughly than anyone I could possibly imagine. And his bedside manner is next-level in discussing the status of the patient, as well as what steps need to be taken on the forever road to recovery.
I think ejaculation should be outlawed because those are half-souls. And any woman who is ovulating who does not get pregnant should be in jail.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster is the biggest abortionist around, but then It wanted those souls in Hades.
I am proceeding on assumption that "Flying Spaghetti Monster" is aka "god?" In which case I think your characterization "biggest abortionist" has been validated by a lot of real-life evidence more widely known since "Dobbs." Arizona State Congresswoman Burch, pregnant with a non-viable conception, also is an ob-gyn MD, and stated that unsuccessful conceptions are common. And even before, it's not a big secret that uncountable fertilizations pass by naturally. Thanks to the Supreme Court, there's been much more of a spotlight on how much how often goes wrong with human procreation. Like you say: biggest murderer of the unborn is: (well, "Flying Spaghetti?) dare I call it god?
not sure where the term came from; I know Sam Harris ("The End of Faith" and "Letter to a Christian Nation") uses it. Very tongue-in-cheek.
As I said before the two main ways to not go extinct by not reproducing with your own prodigy is life time mate or groups of women being exchanged for other outside groups of females. Only one strategy needs men to control women. I guess the GOP want sex with women who have no right to refuse. So much for traditional family values in favor of the ways of hunter gathers.