On Monday, 21 lawmakers in South Carolina proposed a bill that would punish any woman having an abortion with the death penalty. The bill would define as a “person” a woman’s egg that has been fertilized by sperm and apply to “an unborn child at every stage of development from fertilization until birth.”
Recently I saw a French movie made in 2021 which brought back a memory of my junior year, 1962-3, at Colgate University in upstate New York.
The movie is called “Happening”, and it is about a girl who gets pregnant in the 1960’s when abortion was illegal in France, Great Britain, and most of Europe. Ironically, it was freely available to the “enslaved” women behind the Iron Curtain.
The girl, Anne, is an excellent student and has plans to get a university degree and move up in economic/social class. Her having this baby would absolutely put an end to those aspirations. She has nobody but herself to help her, so she resorts to all sorts of primitive methods of abortion, all dangerous. I’ll stop my summary. The movie is very graphic. It can be streamed on HULU or AMC+, or rented or bought everywhere.
I found the film to be a glimpse into the French and American past which is again the American present. As ugly for girls and women as I remember it. I am 80, and I thought those days were finished, but America is regressing, and Womens’ Rights are back to what they were in my long past college days.
The movie brought to my mind how I helped a woman, my landlady, get an illegal abortion in the fall of 1962.
I found a furnished apartment above a garage which was one big room plus bath and closet. I bought a TV (I liked Steve Allen at 10), a stereo, beer (tiny kitchen area) and liquor. The rent was $50 a month, utilities included. I never cooked, as I continued paying for breakfast, lunch, and dinner at Beta, or I ate in town. All my laundry was done, as usual, by the cleaners in town. I lived a lot like the way the Navy took care of its officers when at sea or in a Bachelor Officers Quarters (BOQ) on land.
My landlady was single, in her late 30’s, looked sort of fat, and had two young boys; one in high school and the other around 12. She had some sort of office job in town. I would see the boys more than her; we would just meet every now and then as I got in or out of my car. So, I was a bit surprised when she knocked on my door, a first.
What she wanted from me was for me to pay seven months rent in advance, $350. She said she needed it immediately as “time was running out.” She had $300, but needed $650. Somebody had let her down. I told her to borrow against her house, she didn’t own the house, but had a long-term lease, so that option didn’t exist. Actually, that fact made me wary. If she and the kids just left town, I’d lose that money because the owner had no agreement with me. Finally, she told me that she was pregnant and had to have a $650 illegal abortion right away. She said that she could hardly support her boys and herself now; that she would lose her job; that she could only take care of a baby if she stopped working. Then came the tears and, of course, out came my local bank's checkbook. $350 in 1962 is about $2500 in 2023’s dollars.
She cashed my check the next morning, and went somewhere, probably a motel, for the abortion. I saw her a few days later, and she told me she felt okay, and thanked me, again.
You may find this hard to believe, but five years later I again met her oldest son. He was a sailor on the USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14), on which was my squadron, Attack Squadron 52. He had seen me somewhere on this ship of 4500 men, recognized me, tracked me down, and presented himself—-in a restricted area of the ship, accompanied by a Marine guard. I was in the Intelligence room where briefings and planning went on.
The Marine asked for Mr. Hope while the sailor stood outside. I waved him in, and he told me who he was. I asked after his mother. She was fine, and still lived in that house.
I showed him around, and I gave him the same sort of briefing I would give a VIP about our bombing of North Vietnam and Laos. He loved it, smart kid that he obviously was, and understood everything. It was an eye-opener for the Marine, too.
We all shook hands, said good-bye, and I never saw him again.
Were I today to assist any woman to get an abortion, as I had helped my landlady, in “modern-day” Texas, I would be possibly subjected to prison. Texas: Go f yourself. I’d do it again if asked.
Thank-you for sharing this story. It is truly heart warming.With all of this alacrity towards pregnant women, where is the impregnator in the scheme of things here?If the pregnant woman is being subjected to the death penalty for ending a pregnancy, shouldn't the impregnator face the same fate?This abortion thing is becoming a dystopian nightmare created by mainly old, mainly Republican and mainly male people and the walk we are getting back in time is very unsettling and unwelcome.
Thanks for sharing. Not trivial money--you did the right thing; good thing you could. SC and other states are on the path to right wing evangelical, white male tyranny----no freedom in this. Tragic and more.
Oh, I didn't see this and just now post it. Very funny. And it may be something I dreamed but I believe there was an adjustment to that law. Probably just a happy dream. I think I'll have more. Gotta do someting for balance.
The Jews have this one right: there is no child until it is born, and until then the health of the mother is paramount. We haven't just gone back to the time before Roe, we have gone to the most awful place that Atwood imagined, and it isn't too far-fetched to see Gilead here, today. Very quickly we've gone from outlawing abortion to criminalizing it. Clearly, these miserable zealot misogynists don't see the dissonance of protecting life by taking a life (not to mention all the women in perilous pregnancies who are being allowed to die because, fetus.) Dahlia Lithwick has a nauseating article in Slate today about the Texas case, and it makes clear that this is male vindictive small-dicked behavior taken to such an extreme, I don't know how the lawmakers can live with themselves. I never expected to see this much dystopia in my lifetime. Where is this generation's women warriors? Social media has rendered them passive, just keep whining on FB and consider it done.
Exactly so. Most non-Christian beliefs place the woman's life above that of a prospective, unborn life. And abortion is not forbidden. These laws are a direct attack on the rights of non-Christian fundamentalists and non-believers. I think there's an ongoing lawsuit someplace that is making this argument on behalf of religious groups whose rights are being trampled.
when I saw "satanic temple," my first thought was that it was a bunch of regular, reasonably smart people trying to make a rhetorical point. so I looked them up and it turns out I was right for a change.
The Christian belief is not a Christian belief it is a right wing Christian belief. It has nothing to do with Christianity. Right wing Christianity is bigotry and hate nothing to do with Christ’s teachings.
I did not vote for the uber conservatives on the SC who killed Roe. I believe women took RBG for granted, as if she was immortal. I didn't vote for Trump, who put them on the court.
The women in Texas are stuck with Abbot because they didn't vote him out when they could. There are so many brainwashed people, and women are not waking up fast enough. So yeah, theoretically we can vote, but I didn't vote for Trump and yet his influence, the gastes of Hell he opened, has been grinding my guts, even more so now.
the whole Jewish thing around health, pregnancy, etc. is a very good thing and one of the things that make me glad to be Jewish. but before ALL of us go crazy patting ourselves on the collective back, we should remember there are some very crazy Jewish folks out there whose attitudes regarding abortion make the Catholic Church look like the fucking Kremlin (among whom are the vile Satmar Hasidim, a criminal outfit if ever one was). just saying...
When it comes to monotheistic religions, and even non-monotheistic religions, the fundamentalists (usually the patriarchal extremists) tend to have more in common with each other than they do with non-fundamentalists of their own tradition.
I'm betting that a significant majority of those women are straight and white. Doesn't flabbergast me in the least. Women who identify with men (and are proud of it) opposed women's suffrage. They've been opposing the ERA since it was proposed. I was very pleasantly surprised by the Kansas referendum last year on abortion: that the majority was as big as it was in such a Republican-dominated state suggests that quite a few women are willing to part ways with "their" men when it comes to women's rights.
Belly-slithering chickenshits--ah Lucian, how you give the words that mainstream media just won’t, and how those words are exquisitely succinct and appropriate.
I remember the days of back alley abortions and all the horrors that went with that. Then we finally won legal abortions. I can't even speak when it comes to this topic my rage is so boiling. These are the rabid dogs of the political world and their form of religion. But Viagra is paid for by the government. They obviously hate women more than at any period of time in history. If only an absolutely necessary ingredient in Viagra were mifepristone. I don't like feeling hate. Gad.
My own mother, when growing up in Germany, told my sister and I that she had had 2 abortions and arranged one for her sister too. Of course, we were shocked because we thought she had always been so puritanical. It was actually delightful to learn this info. She was in her 80’s when she made the big “reveal”. Bless her!
Nobody ever was happy about having to make that decision. They used to try to scare us all, still do, that it will haunt you for the rest of your life. I don't know anyone who was haunted, ever, not once.
Everyone who believes women’s rights are human rights and abortion care is medical care needs to BOYCOTT the state of South Carolina. Not later, only if they pass this piece of totalitarian misogynist shit. *Now* for even considering the bill in the first place.
All of this rightwing over-the-top extremism seems to be building toward some kind of climax, a Gotterdammerung. But I have no idea how it will end. Will it collapse in on itself from extreme terminal overreach? Or will it end with a final triumph over the Enlightenment ?
I saw a "sanity/humanity test" on the internet the a while back. You're in a building that's on fire. You have to make a choice. You can save a container with 1000 frozen fertilized embryos OR you can save a crying child, but you can't save both. I guess in SC you'd be a murderer either way. If this passes I can only hope that the brain/job drain of people and companies fleeing that place makes a sucking sound you can hear on the moon.
I would add, can Democratic leadership finally recognize that this is an existential crisis? No more Mr. Nice guy. These guys are the Terminator. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are dead!
Very scary.Terrifying in fact.One question ,though.Given that it takes two to tango, will the man in question where the pregnancy is concerned be held to the same standard?Will the father be forced to provide for the welfare of the child? Or does he just get off,a second time?
Lucian, this is what happens when we revert once more to the thinking prevalent, especially in the South but really with the MAGA party, that state law is supreme. Add in the inane thinking that if an abortion is performed it is just fine and dandy to then kill the woman, and ya know that will of course extend to the person who performed the abortion. Therefore South Carolina will murder two humans because of the aborting of a fetus. Silly as it sounds, maybe the next step will be for those who practice birth control though various types of contraceptives. After all, religion teaches "do not spill your seed upon the ground." Sinner!!!
Amen! I am adding South Carolina to Florida, Texas and Georgia as the names of states I will not spend my money in. I would like to add Ohio to that list but, alas, I live there so there's that.
Oh, no! News to me. That seems wildly contrary to their self-interest. I guess they'll deny pregnancy-gone-awry benefits to women who didn't use contraeptives.
I fought this abortion battle once before--in the seventies--and there was more support from the liberal church community than there is today, when they seem to be largely silent as the evangelicals and radical Catholics have taken over. It's pathetic, but it will not last, as the last election showed. Republicans have not won the popular vote for two decades but our system allows them to rule for now. And despite the Dobbs inference in a footnote that adoption is the option to abortion, it is not. Ask any woman who has given up a child.
For almost 50 years I have been warning against the alliance of fanatical evangelicals and radical right-wing Catholics, and their determination to gradually infiltrate all the centers of power in this country, thus enabling them to force their views on the majority. They are now winning their long game.
What about women with planned pregnancies who miscarry? Are they going to be charged with murder? How will they prove they miscarried when they are charged with murder? Que bagunça!
Recently I saw a French movie made in 2021 which brought back a memory of my junior year, 1962-3, at Colgate University in upstate New York.
The movie is called “Happening”, and it is about a girl who gets pregnant in the 1960’s when abortion was illegal in France, Great Britain, and most of Europe. Ironically, it was freely available to the “enslaved” women behind the Iron Curtain.
The girl, Anne, is an excellent student and has plans to get a university degree and move up in economic/social class. Her having this baby would absolutely put an end to those aspirations. She has nobody but herself to help her, so she resorts to all sorts of primitive methods of abortion, all dangerous. I’ll stop my summary. The movie is very graphic. It can be streamed on HULU or AMC+, or rented or bought everywhere.
I found the film to be a glimpse into the French and American past which is again the American present. As ugly for girls and women as I remember it. I am 80, and I thought those days were finished, but America is regressing, and Womens’ Rights are back to what they were in my long past college days.
The movie brought to my mind how I helped a woman, my landlady, get an illegal abortion in the fall of 1962.
I found a furnished apartment above a garage which was one big room plus bath and closet. I bought a TV (I liked Steve Allen at 10), a stereo, beer (tiny kitchen area) and liquor. The rent was $50 a month, utilities included. I never cooked, as I continued paying for breakfast, lunch, and dinner at Beta, or I ate in town. All my laundry was done, as usual, by the cleaners in town. I lived a lot like the way the Navy took care of its officers when at sea or in a Bachelor Officers Quarters (BOQ) on land.
My landlady was single, in her late 30’s, looked sort of fat, and had two young boys; one in high school and the other around 12. She had some sort of office job in town. I would see the boys more than her; we would just meet every now and then as I got in or out of my car. So, I was a bit surprised when she knocked on my door, a first.
What she wanted from me was for me to pay seven months rent in advance, $350. She said she needed it immediately as “time was running out.” She had $300, but needed $650. Somebody had let her down. I told her to borrow against her house, she didn’t own the house, but had a long-term lease, so that option didn’t exist. Actually, that fact made me wary. If she and the kids just left town, I’d lose that money because the owner had no agreement with me. Finally, she told me that she was pregnant and had to have a $650 illegal abortion right away. She said that she could hardly support her boys and herself now; that she would lose her job; that she could only take care of a baby if she stopped working. Then came the tears and, of course, out came my local bank's checkbook. $350 in 1962 is about $2500 in 2023’s dollars.
She cashed my check the next morning, and went somewhere, probably a motel, for the abortion. I saw her a few days later, and she told me she felt okay, and thanked me, again.
You may find this hard to believe, but five years later I again met her oldest son. He was a sailor on the USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14), on which was my squadron, Attack Squadron 52. He had seen me somewhere on this ship of 4500 men, recognized me, tracked me down, and presented himself—-in a restricted area of the ship, accompanied by a Marine guard. I was in the Intelligence room where briefings and planning went on.
The Marine asked for Mr. Hope while the sailor stood outside. I waved him in, and he told me who he was. I asked after his mother. She was fine, and still lived in that house.
I showed him around, and I gave him the same sort of briefing I would give a VIP about our bombing of North Vietnam and Laos. He loved it, smart kid that he obviously was, and understood everything. It was an eye-opener for the Marine, too.
We all shook hands, said good-bye, and I never saw him again.
Were I today to assist any woman to get an abortion, as I had helped my landlady, in “modern-day” Texas, I would be possibly subjected to prison. Texas: Go f yourself. I’d do it again if asked.
Thank-you for sharing this story. It is truly heart warming.With all of this alacrity towards pregnant women, where is the impregnator in the scheme of things here?If the pregnant woman is being subjected to the death penalty for ending a pregnancy, shouldn't the impregnator face the same fate?This abortion thing is becoming a dystopian nightmare created by mainly old, mainly Republican and mainly male people and the walk we are getting back in time is very unsettling and unwelcome.
This story made my day
Handled like a true gentleman and written like a scholar ! There’s a place for you in rogues’ heaven.
Thanks for sharing. Not trivial money--you did the right thing; good thing you could. SC and other states are on the path to right wing evangelical, white male tyranny----no freedom in this. Tragic and more.
Watch the documentary "The Janes" to see what life was like pre-Roe.
So, does a pregnant woman get two votes?
Remember the Texas woman who was pregnant and fought against a ticket she was issued in the HOV lane, as there were clearly two “persons” in the car?
I certainly do -- she is the inspiration for my comment!
Glad someone else saw that story! I had the same thought.
Oh, I didn't see this and just now post it. Very funny. And it may be something I dreamed but I believe there was an adjustment to that law. Probably just a happy dream. I think I'll have more. Gotta do someting for balance.
Only white Republican women.
Who support antiabortion.
Can she declare the fetus as a dependent when she files her State income tax return?
Acceptable voter ID - letter from the evangelical pastor or Catholic priest
The Jews have this one right: there is no child until it is born, and until then the health of the mother is paramount. We haven't just gone back to the time before Roe, we have gone to the most awful place that Atwood imagined, and it isn't too far-fetched to see Gilead here, today. Very quickly we've gone from outlawing abortion to criminalizing it. Clearly, these miserable zealot misogynists don't see the dissonance of protecting life by taking a life (not to mention all the women in perilous pregnancies who are being allowed to die because, fetus.) Dahlia Lithwick has a nauseating article in Slate today about the Texas case, and it makes clear that this is male vindictive small-dicked behavior taken to such an extreme, I don't know how the lawmakers can live with themselves. I never expected to see this much dystopia in my lifetime. Where is this generation's women warriors? Social media has rendered them passive, just keep whining on FB and consider it done.
Exactly so. Most non-Christian beliefs place the woman's life above that of a prospective, unborn life. And abortion is not forbidden. These laws are a direct attack on the rights of non-Christian fundamentalists and non-believers. I think there's an ongoing lawsuit someplace that is making this argument on behalf of religious groups whose rights are being trampled.
There’s a Jewish lawsuit and a Satanic Temple suit going on right now. I think The Satanic Temple is in several states even.
when I saw "satanic temple," my first thought was that it was a bunch of regular, reasonably smart people trying to make a rhetorical point. so I looked them up and it turns out I was right for a change.
yup!
The Christian belief is not a Christian belief it is a right wing Christian belief. It has nothing to do with Christianity. Right wing Christianity is bigotry and hate nothing to do with Christ’s teachings.
It is also anti choice not pro life.
The difference between this and Gilead, we can vote.
I did not vote for the uber conservatives on the SC who killed Roe. I believe women took RBG for granted, as if she was immortal. I didn't vote for Trump, who put them on the court.
The women in Texas are stuck with Abbot because they didn't vote him out when they could. There are so many brainwashed people, and women are not waking up fast enough. So yeah, theoretically we can vote, but I didn't vote for Trump and yet his influence, the gastes of Hell he opened, has been grinding my guts, even more so now.
I feel your pain. I am 64 recently retired, I was hoping to not have to worry about this shit any more. Not to be…
I'm going on 72, a lesbian and a feminist, and the last time I had the luxury of not worrying about this shit I was maybe 14 years old.
Every word ❤️❤️❤️
the whole Jewish thing around health, pregnancy, etc. is a very good thing and one of the things that make me glad to be Jewish. but before ALL of us go crazy patting ourselves on the collective back, we should remember there are some very crazy Jewish folks out there whose attitudes regarding abortion make the Catholic Church look like the fucking Kremlin (among whom are the vile Satmar Hasidim, a criminal outfit if ever one was). just saying...
When it comes to monotheistic religions, and even non-monotheistic religions, the fundamentalists (usually the patriarchal extremists) tend to have more in common with each other than they do with non-fundamentalists of their own tradition.
That's a really good way to put it, Susanna. I was going to say something like that, but you did it better.
ditto for me, dif.
thank you, Susanna.
No kidding!!
I’m still flabbergasted 60 million women didn’t vote out every GOP for the next two decades…
Exactly. It is beyond disheartening.
I'm betting that a significant majority of those women are straight and white. Doesn't flabbergast me in the least. Women who identify with men (and are proud of it) opposed women's suffrage. They've been opposing the ERA since it was proposed. I was very pleasantly surprised by the Kansas referendum last year on abortion: that the majority was as big as it was in such a Republican-dominated state suggests that quite a few women are willing to part ways with "their" men when it comes to women's rights.
That Kansas shocker is the ONLY real ray of hope I can find.
Belly-slithering chickenshits--ah Lucian, how you give the words that mainstream media just won’t, and how those words are exquisitely succinct and appropriate.
I remember the days of back alley abortions and all the horrors that went with that. Then we finally won legal abortions. I can't even speak when it comes to this topic my rage is so boiling. These are the rabid dogs of the political world and their form of religion. But Viagra is paid for by the government. They obviously hate women more than at any period of time in history. If only an absolutely necessary ingredient in Viagra were mifepristone. I don't like feeling hate. Gad.
My own mother, when growing up in Germany, told my sister and I that she had had 2 abortions and arranged one for her sister too. Of course, we were shocked because we thought she had always been so puritanical. It was actually delightful to learn this info. She was in her 80’s when she made the big “reveal”. Bless her!
Nobody ever was happy about having to make that decision. They used to try to scare us all, still do, that it will haunt you for the rest of your life. I don't know anyone who was haunted, ever, not once.
The amerikan taliban.
And worse because we know what freedom is. And now to take important freedoms away? Really unbelievable.
Everyone who believes women’s rights are human rights and abortion care is medical care needs to BOYCOTT the state of South Carolina. Not later, only if they pass this piece of totalitarian misogynist shit. *Now* for even considering the bill in the first place.
Already am, as well as Texas, Florida, and any others who are supporting this horseshit
All of this rightwing over-the-top extremism seems to be building toward some kind of climax, a Gotterdammerung. But I have no idea how it will end. Will it collapse in on itself from extreme terminal overreach? Or will it end with a final triumph over the Enlightenment ?
Love that German word, Gotterdammerung !
Fall of Rome to the barbarians?
We have jumped the f*ucking shark.
I saw a "sanity/humanity test" on the internet the a while back. You're in a building that's on fire. You have to make a choice. You can save a container with 1000 frozen fertilized embryos OR you can save a crying child, but you can't save both. I guess in SC you'd be a murderer either way. If this passes I can only hope that the brain/job drain of people and companies fleeing that place makes a sucking sound you can hear on the moon.
I would add, can Democratic leadership finally recognize that this is an existential crisis? No more Mr. Nice guy. These guys are the Terminator. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are dead!
Very scary.Terrifying in fact.One question ,though.Given that it takes two to tango, will the man in question where the pregnancy is concerned be held to the same standard?Will the father be forced to provide for the welfare of the child? Or does he just get off,a second time?
You know the answer to those questions! Nothing will ever happen to the men involved. This crusade is always and ONLY about punishing women!
Nobody has voted for it, or is likely to. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/sc-bill-says-women-could-195149775.html The sponsors seem to include a couple of women.
No
Lucian, this is what happens when we revert once more to the thinking prevalent, especially in the South but really with the MAGA party, that state law is supreme. Add in the inane thinking that if an abortion is performed it is just fine and dandy to then kill the woman, and ya know that will of course extend to the person who performed the abortion. Therefore South Carolina will murder two humans because of the aborting of a fetus. Silly as it sounds, maybe the next step will be for those who practice birth control though various types of contraceptives. After all, religion teaches "do not spill your seed upon the ground." Sinner!!!
Target contraceptives isn't a silly logical fantasy, it's one of Clarence Thomas's real-life stated goals.
Amen! I am adding South Carolina to Florida, Texas and Georgia as the names of states I will not spend my money in. I would like to add Ohio to that list but, alas, I live there so there's that.
And its already happening. It starts with health insurance companies refusing to pay for birth control.
Oh, no! News to me. That seems wildly contrary to their self-interest. I guess they'll deny pregnancy-gone-awry benefits to women who didn't use contraeptives.
Or men. Oh, you forgot that part!
Whoops. I can guess what you're getting at but those designations are too dizzying for me. Count me out. Sorry 'bout that.
Making all forms of birth control illegal is also high on the to-do list of the anti-abortion fanatics.
Because, as pointed out above this is not about abortion, or even the lives of children, it's about sex.
If you do it, when we say you shouldn't, then you need to be punished.
I fought this abortion battle once before--in the seventies--and there was more support from the liberal church community than there is today, when they seem to be largely silent as the evangelicals and radical Catholics have taken over. It's pathetic, but it will not last, as the last election showed. Republicans have not won the popular vote for two decades but our system allows them to rule for now. And despite the Dobbs inference in a footnote that adoption is the option to abortion, it is not. Ask any woman who has given up a child.
For almost 50 years I have been warning against the alliance of fanatical evangelicals and radical right-wing Catholics, and their determination to gradually infiltrate all the centers of power in this country, thus enabling them to force their views on the majority. They are now winning their long game.
They will lose in the long run
The long run may be a VERY long time in the future! Right now they are winning and winning and winning.
One might also ask the 400,000 children in foster care how that has worked out for them.
These people are both evil and nuts at the same time.
Catholic Church: no meat on Fridays
Folks: Ok so no eggs for breakfast
CC: No, eggs are ok
F: But eggs are chicken
CC: Not until they hatch
F: So the thing, isn't the thing until it's born?
CC: That's correct...Um, no wait.
What about women with planned pregnancies who miscarry? Are they going to be charged with murder? How will they prove they miscarried when they are charged with murder? Que bagunça!