These are the same people that went completely insane over having to wear a mask for their own and other’s safety. These are the same people who want nothing to do with funding the care for children born into poverty, the healthcare cost of children, the cost of supporting mothers who cannot financially earn enough to support their babies, etc. These are the same people who want to take our health insurance coverage away from those that desperately need it but can’t always afford it. They want to bring back pre-existing conditions on health insurance plans so that people can be denied health insurance. There’s too long a list of the blatant contradictions to their so called concern for the ‘LIFE’ of the unborn - but no concern at all for the lives of the already living. The rampant hypocrisy of the GOP is so extreme and follows their mental slob orange leader’s model - say anything, do anything, hurt anyone while trying to maintain power over the lives of the majority of us.
It has been variously attributed to Florynce Kennedy, Gloria Steinem and an "elderly Irish woman driving a taxi in Boston..." Both Kennedy and Steinem used the phrase but in a 2006 interview with the Boston Globe, Steinem said "You know who said that? Years ago, I was in a taxi in Boston or Cambridge. There was an old Irish woman taxi driver. Flo Kennedy, the civil rights activist, was my speaking partner at the time. We were sitting in the back, talking about abortion and the taxi driver turned around and she said, 'Honey, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.' and I've always been so sorry that I didn't get her name."
Thanks for that. I had heard, sometime in the late 70's I believe (college time, ya know) that it was birth prevention that would be a sacrament and that abortion would be free on demand.
Thanks! Another version simply adds to "could get pregnant' the corollary "and bear children," and one I saw that was in a comments thread on a Texas media outlet's website started out with "If Texas men could get pregnant and bear children..." This was at the height of some debates about specific anti-choice laws in the Texas legislature.
But anyway it's a witty and bitterly true takedown of the rampant hypocrisy about abortion.
Not really. They are punishing women for the economic and political gains they experience when they're in control of their lives. Punishing women for having sex is something our culture has always done, and it's because virginity, chastity and obedience by women is demanded by patriarchy. There is a segment of the population that wants to return fully to that insidious custom.
Of course—those factors, too. But the anti-abortion fanatics really do see being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term as punishment for “sinful” behavior.
Now that Arizona has turned the clock back to the Confederacy, I'm sure that Alabama, Georgia, Texass, Mississippi, Louisiana, etc., will be tripping over each other to emulate their Arizona brothers. Insanity reigns supreme in GQP land.
Heather Cox Richardson devotes her Sept. 24 Letter from an American to this Arizona law, and her interpretation and discussion of the context may be of interest:
"The law that is currently interpreted to outlaw abortion care seemed designed to keep men in the chaos of the Civil War from inflicting damage on others—including pregnant women—rather than to police women’s reproductive care, which women largely handled on their own or through the help of doctors who used drugs and instruments to remove what they called dangerous blockages of women’s natural cycles in the four to five months before fetal movement became obvious."
And in conclusion she summarizes:
"So, in 1864, a legislature of 27 white men created a body of laws that discriminated against Black people and people of color and considered girls as young as 10 able to consent to sex, and they adopted a body of criminal laws written by one single man.
"And in 2022, one of those laws is back in force in Arizona."
Heather and Lucien have been my top news/opinion sources for some time now. May their readership grow, and through our conversations may we influence those who aren’t paying much attention.
I don’t know if you can hear me screaming but I AM!! For over 50 years, 5-0 YEARS, I have been fighting against these moronic evil people re: abortions! It is unconscionable to me that a female judge pull this out of her proverbial hat but I strongly think her ear is tugged on by the far right group, ALEC. The good ole boys network tells her what to do, what to say, just like they do with Loose Cannon. Hard to keep my mouth shut!
These punitive laws are about control. They don't care about the mother or the child, or they would provide postnatal care and financial support until the child becomes an adult.
Attempting to establish a law based on a non-American government which no longer exists opens the barn door to all sorts of possibilities. Why stop with abortion? Let females be controlled by the men in their families, and let their properties revert to the ownership of the men they marry, just as Martha Washington’s inherited wealth became George’s upon marriage. And laws that rightly order the status and behavior of non-white people and slaves would certainly correct the unfair obstacles to wealth and power that white men now face. Make America safe for frightened white men. Establish the world they imagined they would have when they were in high school.
Never forget that ONE THIRD of GOP voters in a recent survey declared that they wish the South had won the Civil War. Give these evil monsters enough power and they will not only ban all abortions; they will also deprive people of color of every right, starting with revoking the Emancipation Proclamation!
I suspect these absurd legislative attacks on women's rights are cynical and insincere. I think they are intended to just keep the furor in our country on a boil, just like flying noncitizens to Martha's Vineyard. This is all about stirring anarchy so they can throw the government into disarray. And we already know what happens next - January 6 was a trial run.
Some may be cynical opportunists, but many others are much more dangerous religious fanatics. I don’t know if any scholar has tried to do a comprehensive survey of the religious affiliation of ultra-conservative GOP politicians, but I am willing to bet the farm that 99.9% of them are evangelical Christians!
And whose religious fervor stems more from pulpit talk and cherry-picking a few phrases from the Bible as opposed to any actual careful reading of it (and wherein, BTW, there is no mention of forbidding abortions). It really is more about control over women and keeping that control and power in the hands of the patriarchy.
theologians from Judaic and Islamic religions have agreed, there is nothing in the Old Testament, the Torah or the Quran that forbids abortion...and indeed, in Jewish traditions is is imperative that the life of the mother be considered over the life of the fetus. This holds for all Abrahhamic religions.
Great article, but your facts are incorrect. Statehood was granted February 14, 1912. My great-great grandfather William Herring was the territorial AG and refused to fly a flag until statehood passed. He had a 48-star flag custom made for the occasion.
For the life of me, I cannot understand why women are literally dying to immigrate to the US from Latin America where the same draconian laws against women are in place. Why anyone from the global south, male or female thinks the US is a democracy with human rights carved in stone is baffling. They are deluding themselves. We will soon see a serious shortage of OB/GYNs who will make hard decisions about their own careers and wellbeing. Is it worth it?
You might want to read up on the conditions in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and some other Latin American countries.. They probably don't have access to the same news sources as you and I do either.
I'm very aware of what's happening in those countries. They risk their lives to come to the US, some not making it at all, to be treated abusively, without human rights. We need them as much as they need us, but until the US operates as a true democracy, with a humane immigration process, the dreams of immigrants will never be realized - at least for the vast majority. The United States is the most dangerous country in the developed world.
True, but until a greater proportion of the U.S. population realizes this, I don't expect people who are in far more desperate straits to do so. If you think of the U.S. less as it really is and more as the beacon of hope that many believe it to be, it makes things a little clearer.
Yes - I am also very aware of the effects on the global south. It's heartbreaking and frightening. We are only at the beginning of what is coming. The west lives in denial.
Most people recoil from extremism. Loud noise on talk radio or crazy antics at the legislature might be fun, but the woman of Arizona knows better. Republicans will rue the day they went off the deep end.
They sure as hell haven’t rued it yet! They are salivating and slobbering and snickering with delight over their success in reducing women to baby-making machines with the same degree of control over their bodies as livestock.
I really enjoyed living several years in Tempe, but that was near a large university campus and with friends I had joined to play in a rock band. The first drawback we noticed immediately, as part of their whole urban planning, was that in a desert the powers that be, the real estate development geniuses, had encouraged "The Lakes" in Tempe, and all these green swaths of turf in various locations, requiring massive amounts of water.
Do you know how little it rains in the Phoenix-Tempe-Mesa- Scottsdale-Chandler area over an entire year?
Et cetera, et cetera.
Also: I knew any number of people with progressive political and social views, but they were all transplants from the East and the Midwest!
I cannot understand why a law created in 1864 by an entity outside the Union, an enemy of the Union, has any validity after the end of the Civil War. Why do they have to be recognized and enforced at all?
These are the same people that went completely insane over having to wear a mask for their own and other’s safety. These are the same people who want nothing to do with funding the care for children born into poverty, the healthcare cost of children, the cost of supporting mothers who cannot financially earn enough to support their babies, etc. These are the same people who want to take our health insurance coverage away from those that desperately need it but can’t always afford it. They want to bring back pre-existing conditions on health insurance plans so that people can be denied health insurance. There’s too long a list of the blatant contradictions to their so called concern for the ‘LIFE’ of the unborn - but no concern at all for the lives of the already living. The rampant hypocrisy of the GOP is so extreme and follows their mental slob orange leader’s model - say anything, do anything, hurt anyone while trying to maintain power over the lives of the majority of us.
The only real purpose of draconian anti-abortion laws is to punish women for having sex. All the rest is pious bullshit.
"If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament and available for free at Walmart."
---- Internet wit, unknown provenance
It has been variously attributed to Florynce Kennedy, Gloria Steinem and an "elderly Irish woman driving a taxi in Boston..." Both Kennedy and Steinem used the phrase but in a 2006 interview with the Boston Globe, Steinem said "You know who said that? Years ago, I was in a taxi in Boston or Cambridge. There was an old Irish woman taxi driver. Flo Kennedy, the civil rights activist, was my speaking partner at the time. We were sitting in the back, talking about abortion and the taxi driver turned around and she said, 'Honey, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.' and I've always been so sorry that I didn't get her name."
Source: Quote Investigator...
Thanks for that. I had heard, sometime in the late 70's I believe (college time, ya know) that it was birth prevention that would be a sacrament and that abortion would be free on demand.
I just heard one yesterday: What do you call someone who has no reproductive rights?
Answer: Livestock.
Thanks! Another version simply adds to "could get pregnant' the corollary "and bear children," and one I saw that was in a comments thread on a Texas media outlet's website started out with "If Texas men could get pregnant and bear children..." This was at the height of some debates about specific anti-choice laws in the Texas legislature.
But anyway it's a witty and bitterly true takedown of the rampant hypocrisy about abortion.
Exactly so.
If women shouldn’t have sex, maybe men shouldn’t either? Or not with women, anyway?
Not really. They are punishing women for the economic and political gains they experience when they're in control of their lives. Punishing women for having sex is something our culture has always done, and it's because virginity, chastity and obedience by women is demanded by patriarchy. There is a segment of the population that wants to return fully to that insidious custom.
Of course—those factors, too. But the anti-abortion fanatics really do see being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term as punishment for “sinful” behavior.
Extremely well said!
Now that Arizona has turned the clock back to the Confederacy, I'm sure that Alabama, Georgia, Texass, Mississippi, Louisiana, etc., will be tripping over each other to emulate their Arizona brothers. Insanity reigns supreme in GQP land.
So now, let's see:
Women have fewer rights than slaves of 1865.
The GOP is about to find out what a pissed off woman is really capable of.
We're tired of the patriarchy telling us what's good for us.
Women: vote as if your life depends on it-because now it really does.
Vote out every single Republican in office, no matter what office, or where.
We have to smash the patriarchy so that they will never do this again.
Unfortunately, millions of stupid, ignorant, bigoted women still vote GOP.
Heather Cox Richardson devotes her Sept. 24 Letter from an American to this Arizona law, and her interpretation and discussion of the context may be of interest:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-24-2022
An extract:
"The law that is currently interpreted to outlaw abortion care seemed designed to keep men in the chaos of the Civil War from inflicting damage on others—including pregnant women—rather than to police women’s reproductive care, which women largely handled on their own or through the help of doctors who used drugs and instruments to remove what they called dangerous blockages of women’s natural cycles in the four to five months before fetal movement became obvious."
And in conclusion she summarizes:
"So, in 1864, a legislature of 27 white men created a body of laws that discriminated against Black people and people of color and considered girls as young as 10 able to consent to sex, and they adopted a body of criminal laws written by one single man.
"And in 2022, one of those laws is back in force in Arizona."
Heather and Lucien have been my top news/opinion sources for some time now. May their readership grow, and through our conversations may we influence those who aren’t paying much attention.
SAME HERE!! They both make me sound a lot smarter and better informed than I am.
I don’t know if you can hear me screaming but I AM!! For over 50 years, 5-0 YEARS, I have been fighting against these moronic evil people re: abortions! It is unconscionable to me that a female judge pull this out of her proverbial hat but I strongly think her ear is tugged on by the far right group, ALEC. The good ole boys network tells her what to do, what to say, just like they do with Loose Cannon. Hard to keep my mouth shut!
These punitive laws are about control. They don't care about the mother or the child, or they would provide postnatal care and financial support until the child becomes an adult.
They will not stop at abortion.
Attempting to establish a law based on a non-American government which no longer exists opens the barn door to all sorts of possibilities. Why stop with abortion? Let females be controlled by the men in their families, and let their properties revert to the ownership of the men they marry, just as Martha Washington’s inherited wealth became George’s upon marriage. And laws that rightly order the status and behavior of non-white people and slaves would certainly correct the unfair obstacles to wealth and power that white men now face. Make America safe for frightened white men. Establish the world they imagined they would have when they were in high school.
Never forget that ONE THIRD of GOP voters in a recent survey declared that they wish the South had won the Civil War. Give these evil monsters enough power and they will not only ban all abortions; they will also deprive people of color of every right, starting with revoking the Emancipation Proclamation!
I suspect these absurd legislative attacks on women's rights are cynical and insincere. I think they are intended to just keep the furor in our country on a boil, just like flying noncitizens to Martha's Vineyard. This is all about stirring anarchy so they can throw the government into disarray. And we already know what happens next - January 6 was a trial run.
Some may be cynical opportunists, but many others are much more dangerous religious fanatics. I don’t know if any scholar has tried to do a comprehensive survey of the religious affiliation of ultra-conservative GOP politicians, but I am willing to bet the farm that 99.9% of them are evangelical Christians!
And whose religious fervor stems more from pulpit talk and cherry-picking a few phrases from the Bible as opposed to any actual careful reading of it (and wherein, BTW, there is no mention of forbidding abortions). It really is more about control over women and keeping that control and power in the hands of the patriarchy.
theologians from Judaic and Islamic religions have agreed, there is nothing in the Old Testament, the Torah or the Quran that forbids abortion...and indeed, in Jewish traditions is is imperative that the life of the mother be considered over the life of the fetus. This holds for all Abrahhamic religions.
Great article, but your facts are incorrect. Statehood was granted February 14, 1912. My great-great grandfather William Herring was the territorial AG and refused to fly a flag until statehood passed. He had a 48-star flag custom made for the occasion.
Fixed it. Thanks for the correction.
For the life of me, I cannot understand why women are literally dying to immigrate to the US from Latin America where the same draconian laws against women are in place. Why anyone from the global south, male or female thinks the US is a democracy with human rights carved in stone is baffling. They are deluding themselves. We will soon see a serious shortage of OB/GYNs who will make hard decisions about their own careers and wellbeing. Is it worth it?
You might want to read up on the conditions in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and some other Latin American countries.. They probably don't have access to the same news sources as you and I do either.
I'm very aware of what's happening in those countries. They risk their lives to come to the US, some not making it at all, to be treated abusively, without human rights. We need them as much as they need us, but until the US operates as a true democracy, with a humane immigration process, the dreams of immigrants will never be realized - at least for the vast majority. The United States is the most dangerous country in the developed world.
True, but until a greater proportion of the U.S. population realizes this, I don't expect people who are in far more desperate straits to do so. If you think of the U.S. less as it really is and more as the beacon of hope that many believe it to be, it makes things a little clearer.
See "effects of global climate change on the global south," for starters!
And a possible scenario for one serious consequence here in the USA, among others:
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/15/hurricane-category-6-this-is-how-world-ends-book-climate-change
Yes - I am also very aware of the effects on the global south. It's heartbreaking and frightening. We are only at the beginning of what is coming. The west lives in denial.
Most people recoil from extremism. Loud noise on talk radio or crazy antics at the legislature might be fun, but the woman of Arizona knows better. Republicans will rue the day they went off the deep end.
They sure as hell haven’t rued it yet! They are salivating and slobbering and snickering with delight over their success in reducing women to baby-making machines with the same degree of control over their bodies as livestock.
If the Democrats can’t win pretty much every election in Arizona this year I swear to Christ.
I have only incoherent rage and disgust at the RepubliQan party today. Along with their MAGAt followers. Fuckknuckles one and all.
What’s the matter with Arizona? Everything.
I really enjoyed living several years in Tempe, but that was near a large university campus and with friends I had joined to play in a rock band. The first drawback we noticed immediately, as part of their whole urban planning, was that in a desert the powers that be, the real estate development geniuses, had encouraged "The Lakes" in Tempe, and all these green swaths of turf in various locations, requiring massive amounts of water.
Do you know how little it rains in the Phoenix-Tempe-Mesa- Scottsdale-Chandler area over an entire year?
Et cetera, et cetera.
Also: I knew any number of people with progressive political and social views, but they were all transplants from the East and the Midwest!
We really do live in an insane asylum.
I cannot understand why a law created in 1864 by an entity outside the Union, an enemy of the Union, has any validity after the end of the Civil War. Why do they have to be recognized and enforced at all?
I am wondering the very same thing! Has no one brought this up in Arizona??? I would HOPE that a liberal lawyer will make this point there, and soon.