Are there any statistics (from reliable sources) that show for USA and/or UK
1. Total number of abortions
2. Number of abortions where the pregnancy arose from rape or abuse
3. Number of abortions where the mother's physical health was at risk
4. Number of abortions where the mother's mental/emotional/physiological health is at risk
5. Number of abortions where there are serious health issues with the foetus
Here & here, and now that I’ve done that for you - you do something for me; go and read the Epiphanies forums guidelines before you post on this thread again.
Hosting
Hi,
This is a subject related to abortion where many people posting on the Ship have relevant and deeply painful lived experience.
Asking other people to furnish statistics without saying why or for what purpose comes over as an attempt to play debating games or to score points about something which potentially could kill or injure people posting here (or their family members) or bring back traumatic memories for others. Please do not do this.
Would other posters please not follow up those posts?
Edited to add -
Could I also ask that posters on this subject go for their posts being led and informed by what people who could face the results of decisions like this on their own body have to say about it? If that's not you or you've never faced such situations, please go for reflecting and listening to those who do.
I notice that AOC is saying that if this is the court decision, it is an attack on privacy itself, and could threaten equal marriage, contraception, etc. I notice Republican threats to illegalize travelling for an abortion. Good God. Sorry, no link.
I notice that AOC is saying that if this is the court decision, it is an attack on privacy itself, and could threaten equal marriage, contraception, etc. I notice Republican threats to illegalize travelling for an abortion. Good God. Sorry, no link.
Alito made an attempt to deny this suggestion on p. 62 of the draft opinion.
And to ensure that our decision is not misunderstood or mischaracterized, we emphasize that our decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right. Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.
Of course the reasoning in the Dobbs draft applies equally to other privacy cases, as well as substantive due process cases. This is similar to the "this case is not a precedent" clause in Bush v. Gore, which is pretty remarkable for a precedent-based legal system. My guess is that the strategy here is to pretend to not be interested in revoking other rights that would obviously be implicated as invalid under Dobbs' reasoning to divide support by those who support such rights.
As a note of clarification, it should be noted that in this legal context "privacy" not a synonym for "secrecy" but rather designates things that are under the control of private citizens rather than the state.
I am puzzled by something which I hope somebody can explain. As I understand it, if the leaked decision goes through then it is up to each individual state to decide its stance on the abortion issue. But hasn't Texas already done this? How could Texas have effectively outlawed abortion when Roe v Wade is still in force?
I am puzzled by something which I hope somebody can explain. As I understand it, if the leaked decision goes through then it is up to each individual state to decide its stance on the abortion issue. But hasn't Texas already done this? How could Texas have effectively outlawed abortion when Roe v Wade is still in force?
Texas made it possible for someone - anyone - to sue in the civil courts. They couldn't make it a criminal offence.
I am puzzled by something which I hope somebody can explain. As I understand it, if the leaked decision goes through then it is up to each individual state to decide its stance on the abortion issue. But hasn't Texas already done this? How could Texas have effectively outlawed abortion when Roe v Wade is still in force?
Texas made it possible for someone - anyone - to sue in the civil courts. They couldn't make it a criminal offence.
But who would have standing to sue? The mother-to-be, the father-to-be, but who else?
I am puzzled by something which I hope somebody can explain. As I understand it, if the leaked decision goes through then it is up to each individual state to decide its stance on the abortion issue. But hasn't Texas already done this? How could Texas have effectively outlawed abortion when Roe v Wade is still in force?
Texas made it possible for someone - anyone - to sue in the civil courts. They couldn't make it a criminal offence.
But who would have standing to sue? The mother-to-be, the father-to-be, but who else?
According to the Texas law, pretty much anyone.
It remains to be seen whether the courts will agree that Texas can basically give everyone standing to sue on something like this.
Thanks - a comment which surprises me. Does the law which gives standing to sue also create a liability to support the mother-to-be and the child?
No—it allows a plaintiff to recover damages (a minimum of $10,000, plus court costs and attorney fees) from anyone who performs or facilitates the procurement of an abortion.
I am puzzled by something which I hope somebody can explain. As I understand it, if the leaked decision goes through then it is up to each individual state to decide its stance on the abortion issue. But hasn't Texas already done this? How could Texas have effectively outlawed abortion when Roe v Wade is still in force?
It passed an unenforceable law which springs to life once Roe is overturned.
Today I read that (I think) 13 states have anti-abortion laws that will immediately come into effect when Roe is struck down. In other news Amazon is now offering to pay travel costs for employees needing medical treatment that can't be had at home. The list of covered procedures includes trans surgery, and abortion.
I am puzzled by something which I hope somebody can explain. As I understand it, if the leaked decision goes through then it is up to each individual state to decide its stance on the abortion issue. But hasn't Texas already done this? How could Texas have effectively outlawed abortion when Roe v Wade is still in force?
Essentially because the Republican-appointed majority on the Supreme Court decided that it would not issue any orders or injunctions to force Texas' compliance with federal law. I've got a post on the Texas abortion law thread that details the particulars. Part of the problem here is that people like @Jonah the Whale assume that there are some kind of neutral arbiters that will step in and assure that the rules are followed. There are not. It's all pure nihilistic will to power. More precisely, the six Republican-appointed justices on the Supreme Court were appointed to achieve exactly this result, so it seems a bit nearsighted to wonder how exactly this result was produced.
Are there any statistics (from reliable sources) that show for USA and/or UK
1. Total number of abortions
2. Number of abortions where the pregnancy arose from rape or abuse
3. Number of abortions where the mother's physical health was at risk
4. Number of abortions where the mother's mental/emotional/physiological health is at risk
5. Number of abortions where there are serious health issues with the foetus
Here & here, and now that I’ve done that for you - you do something for me; go and read the Epiphanies forums guidelines before you post on this thread again.
Ok I take your point and Louise's too. It's not an attempt to do anything other than find out what some of the background. I did not want nor did I/do i seek to offend anyone.
I would've hoped for a more gentler and less sarcastic response though -- perhaps a PM first with an on line confirmation?
So one of the effects I've seen this having on women and people who can get pregnant already is people talking about deleting period tracker apps off their phones because the companies behind them sell the data and when your last period was is something which could potentially be used against you.
I've also seen people talking about reviving and updating the networks and methods which existed when abortion was last illegal for women to be able to get menstrual extractions and the modern medical pill abortions using mifepristone and misoprostol - there's a big article on that in The Atlantic but I didn't want to link in case it was too graphic for people.
This is already scaring many women and people who can get pregnant. People posting here probably already know about women/pregnant people with much wanted pregnancies who died because they lived in countries with abortion bans because of the way those end up compromising gynaecological care for things like sepsis, ectopic pregnancies etc.
Targeting abortion rights has also been noticed to have a connection with failing democracies
[Warning - this article kicks off with a shocking description of what happened to Izabela who died because of the Polish abortion legislation]
While democratic backsliding often leads to the erosion of reproductive rights, the relationship works in the other direction as well: Targeting reproductive rights has proved a useful political tool for illiberal leaders, a bargaining chip that helps them gain power and maintain it.
Meanwhile in the UK 'The Times' apparently endorsed this move against Roe v Wade - as the old saying goes 'when people tell you who they are, believe them' - looks like they're going to push the same agenda over here.
... Meanwhile in the UK 'The Times' apparently endorsed this move against Roe v Wade - as the old saying goes 'when people tell you who they are, believe them' - looks like they're going to push the same agenda over here.
Are you sure of that? It sounds very unlikely. Abortion is not quite the same sort of issue here. It's intermittently controversial but not in the way or at the level of ferocious fervour it's clearly become in the USA. It's covered by legislation, and something that's a bit puzzling from a UK perspective is how abortion can be a constitutional issue either way when it's a subject on which, as far as outsiders can see, the US constitution is completely silent.
... Meanwhile in the UK 'The Times' apparently endorsed this move against Roe v Wade - as the old saying goes 'when people tell you who they are, believe them' - looks like they're going to push the same agenda over here.
Are you sure of that? It sounds very unlikely. Abortion is not quite the same sort of issue here. It's intermittently controversial but not in the way or at the level of ferocious fervour it's clearly become in the USA. It's covered by legislation, and something that's a bit puzzling from a UK perspective is how abortion can be a constitutional issue either way when it's a subject on which, as far as outsiders can see, the US constitution is completely silent.
The doctrine of "unenumerated rights" is, I understand, at the core of the answer.
It's worth remembering that abortion wasn't always a hot button issue in the US - that status was a deliberate creation of Nixon and his allies among evangelicals in order to get Christians to line up to vote for a far right economic agenda.
I think The Times and Murdoch press are first try to torpedo trans rights, then it will be the rest of the queer spectrum, then it will be women’s bodily autonomy.
Carole Cadwalladr did a lot of good work on the links between Brexit, Trump and the international far right nexus. These things happening are not accidents.
. . . something that's a bit puzzling from a UK perspective is how abortion can be a constitutional issue either way when it's a subject on which, as far as outsiders can see, the US constitution is completely silent.
It depends on whether you have an expansive or restrictive view of individual rights. The Ninth Amendment would imply an expansive view of individual rights.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
One of the objections to including a bill of rights in the U.S. Constitution when it was drafted was the fear that spelling out certain rights explicitly would imply that the people of the new republic possessed only those rights explicitly mentioned in the text of the Constitution. The Ninth Amendment was James Madison's solution to that particular fear, writing in to the Constitution the instruction that individual rights should be construed extensively (that which is not explicitly forbidden is permitted) rather than restrictively (that which is not explicitly permitted is forbidden).
Another thing to keep in mind about the the concept of individual rights under the U.S. Constitution is that most of the enumerated rights are not framed in terms of what individuals are allowed to do but rather in terms of limits on how the government can exercise its powers. For example, the First Amendment states:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
In other words it's framed not in terms of "these are the rights individuals have" but rather "these are ways in which Congress (and, after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, the individual states) cannot exercise its powers".
That's a lot of background to get to the basic point that judicial conservatives often see it to their advantage to reverse this standard when it comes to abortion restrictions and other exercises of state power that they like. Instead of asking "where in the Constitution does it mention abortion?" as Alito does it is more appropriate to ask "where in the Constitution does it grant the government the power to make women's medical decisions for them?"
It's worth remembering that abortion wasn't always a hot button issue in the US - that status was a deliberate creation of Nixon and his allies among evangelicals in order to get Christians to line up to vote for a far right economic agenda.
The epithet "acid, amnesty, abortion" was first applied to George McGovern's primary campaign in 1972, though a quick internet search reveals that it was actually Thomas Eagleton, working for McG's primary opponent Muskie, who came up with it. (Eagleton was later McGovern's running mate.)
But I don't think "pro-life" really emerged as a polically influential lobby group until the mid-to-late 1970s; with anti-abortion language being included in the GOP platform in 1976, and becoming increasingly uncompromising with each passing election. I remember 1984 as the year that the party became solidly identified with the Religious Right, but that could also be because that was the first US election I followed with a mature understanding of political ideology. *
* I remember my dad saying in 1980 that if Reagan wins, "they're gonna be back to mom sitting on the porch and apple pie down there." I don't think I quite understood what he meant.
Neil J Young has a twitter thread showing how attitudes to the abortion among the religious right in the US have evolved since the 1970's when it was pretty much a non-issue.
This Politico article goes into more detail about the history and explores the relationship with segregation.
Although UK readers may think that this couldn't happen here, I'm not convinced. The Internet makes it much easier to connect with like minded people and exchange ideas, there's lots of common language between activists here and in the US. That gets amplified by mainstream news outlets who probably should know better but really don't care.
I don't think it couldn't happen in the UK. The concerted attacks on trans people are a gateway for the right wing, drawing in some feminists. Labour and the SNP are continually being attacked on trans rights.
Neil J Young has a twitter thread showing how attitudes to the abortion among the religious right in the US have evolved since the 1970's when it was pretty much a non-issue.
This Politico article goes into more detail about the history and explores the relationship with segregation.
Fred Clarke refers to white evangelical opposition to legal abortion as the 'biblical view' that's younger than the Happy Meal. What's interesting is the way white evangelicals have retconned this fact out of their history.
At some point between 1968 and 2012, the Bible began to say something different. That’s interesting.
Even more interesting is how thoroughly the record has been rewritten. We have always been at war with Eastasia.
Click over to Dr. Norman L. Geisler’s website and you’ll find all the hallmarks of a respected figure in the evangelical establishment. You’ll see that Geisler has taught at Trinity Evangelical Seminary, Dallas Seminary and Southern Evangelical Seminary. You’ll see a promotion for his newest book, Defending Inerrancy, with recommendations from such evangelical stalwarts as Al Mohler and J.I. Packer, as well as a link to an online store offering some of the other dozens of books written by Geisler. And you’ll see a big promo for the anti-abortion movie October Baby, because Geisler is, of course, anti-abortion, just like Mohler and Packer and every other respected figure in the evangelical establishment is and, of course, must be.
But back in the day, Dudley notes, Geisler “argued for the permissibility of abortion in a 1971 book, stating ‘The embryo is not fully human — it is an undeveloped person.'” That was in Ethics: Alternatives and Issues, published by Zondervan. It’s still in print, kind of, as Christian Ethics: Contemporary Issues and Options. And now it says something different. Now it’s unambiguously anti-abortion.
... Meanwhile in the UK 'The Times' apparently endorsed this move against Roe v Wade - as the old saying goes 'when people tell you who they are, believe them' - looks like they're going to push the same agenda over here.
Are you sure of that? It sounds very unlikely. Abortion is not quite the same sort of issue here. It's intermittently controversial but not in the way or at the level of ferocious fervour it's clearly become in the USA. It's covered by legislation, and something that's a bit puzzling from a UK perspective is how abortion can be a constitutional issue either way when it's a subject on which, as far as outsiders can see, the US constitution is completely silent.
US-based groups on the Religious Right are funding much of the UK's current assault on trans rights, why wouldn't they also go after abortion?
Neil J Young has a twitter thread showing how attitudes to the abortion among the religious right in the US have evolved since the 1970's when it was pretty much a non-issue.
This Politico article goes into more detail about the history and explores the relationship with segregation.
Although UK readers may think that this couldn't happen here, I'm not convinced. The Internet makes it much easier to connect with like minded people and exchange ideas, there's lots of common language between activists here and in the US. That gets amplified by mainstream news outlets who probably should know better but really don't care.
We may end up in the rather incredible position of women travelling from the UK to Ireland to have abortions. And NI currently has the most liberalised abortion policy in the UK, since it has been fully decriminalised there - in the rest of the UK it is merely legalised, ie legal in specific circumstances but otherwise illegal.
I don't think it couldn't happen in the UK. The concerted attacks on trans people are a gateway for the right wing, drawing in some feminists. Labour and the SNP are continually being attacked on trans rights.
And a huge part of the debates on trans rights focuses on the fertility of trans men and other trans people who are afab (assigned female at birth). Opponents are absolutely terrified of people deciding that they actually don't mind being less fertile - rather than increasing access to reproductive technologies and gamete freezing as well as obgyn care specialising in trans healthcare (trans men can and do get pregnant and it's actually not that difficult - testosterone alone often doesn't stop menstruation and isn't birth control in itself), they simply want to preserve as many fertile wombs as possible. It seems obvious to me that this language would be easily adopted for anti-abortion purposes. There is already a fairly large anti-BC feminist contingent in the woo earth mother type circles.
... Meanwhile in the UK 'The Times' apparently endorsed this move against Roe v Wade - as the old saying goes 'when people tell you who they are, believe them' - looks like they're going to push the same agenda over here.
Are you sure of that? It sounds very unlikely. Abortion is not quite the same sort of issue here. It's intermittently controversial but not in the way or at the level of ferocious fervour it's clearly become in the USA. It's covered by legislation, and something that's a bit puzzling from a UK perspective is how abortion can be a constitutional issue either way when it's a subject on which, as far as outsiders can see, the US constitution is completely silent.
US-based groups on the Religious Right are funding much of the UK's current assault on trans rights, why wouldn't they also go after abortion?
But trans rights is sort of a new issue, which might, justifiably or not, cause a certain amount of disquiet for some people.
Legal abortion, by contrast, has been around for decades, and I would assume most people in the UK already have a settled opinion on it, leaning towards acceptance. So, American anti-choicers can pump all the money they want into the UK, I don't see where they're gonna find a market for their views.
(And somewhat related to the above, anti-trans in Britain largely coasts on its association with certain feminist tendecies. If it were simply something promoted by religious conservatives, I doubt it would have any traction at all. And who is there in the UK besides religious conservatives who would promote an anti-abortion movement?)
It should also be pointed out that, even after four decades of being blitzed with anti-choice propaganda, a majority of Americans STILL oppose overturning Roe v. Wade(*). Similar movements would almost certainly have less success in Britain.
(*) This is not the same thing as saying that the majority will always vote for pro-choice candidates, since people aren't thinking about every single issue when they vote.
On the UK, the anti-abortion movement and trans issues: I have read Mumsnet for many years, partly for the parently advice, and partly to kill time. As it is a very influential website it's seems relevant here.
There is a strong anti-trans element on Mumsnet but I would say that it's quite specifically directed towards transwomen rather than trans people in general. They have very little to say about transmen. The logic - and the proponents of this are very clear about it - is that being biologically female confers a disadvantage and that rights for transwomen need to be balanced against this. Regardless of whether anyone agrees with this logic, the point is that it's founded very squarely in the rights of people who are biologically female rather than, say, traditional family values, which would be seen as very quaint there. I don't see opposition to abortion getting any traction among those people at all.
In fact I wonder if ultimately this will be the death knell of conservatives in the US. I understand that despite the divide, abortion is generally supported there. My question to US shipmates is this: now that Roe v Wade has been gutted and access to abortion is a straightforward legislative issue, isn't it possible that attempting to restrict abortion rights legislatively could turn out to be a massive vote-loser in state legislatures?
On the UK, the anti-abortion movement and trans issues: I have read Mumsnet for many years, partly for the parently advice, and partly to kill time. As it is a very influential website it's seems relevant here.
There is a strong anti-trans element on Mumsnet but I would say that it's quite specifically directed towards transwomen rather than trans people in general. They have very little to say about transmen. The logic - and the proponents of this are very clear about it - is that being biologically female confers a disadvantage and that rights for transwomen need to be balanced against this. Regardless of whether anyone agrees with this logic, the point is that it's founded very squarely in the rights of people who are biologically female rather than, say, traditional family values, which would be seen as very quaint there. I don't see opposition to abortion getting any traction among those people at all.
In fact I wonder if ultimately this will be the death knell of conservatives in the US. I understand that despite the divide, abortion is generally supported there. My question to US shipmates is this: now that Roe v Wade has been gutted and access to abortion is a straightforward legislative issue, isn't it possible that attempting to restrict abortion rights legislatively could turn out to be a massive vote-loser in state legislatures?
This is not true. There is enormous moral panic there about trans men and their bodies, disguised under rhetoric about concern for women - because they view trans men as confused women. That trans women (not 'transwomen') bear the brunt of it doesn't mean that trans people assigned female at birth (not 'biological women' because trans men aren't women) aren't also targeted, even if that targeting comes in a more apparently benign form.
The TERFs of Prosecco Stormfront have already got into bed with the right-wing evangelicals both here and also with US imports, to the extent that they are suing a rape crisis centre because one of them thought there was a trans woman in group therapy with them (they do not actually know that the woman was trans). If you're suing a rape crisis centre to satisfy your hatred of trans women, clearly the safety and rights of any woman is not a priority for you. It was never about protecting women, it's about policing women.
Anti-abortion tickets are enormous vote-winners in the US. Many white evangelicals - including women - vote solely on this issue. For many it is seen as THE priority issue.
I think many of us here hope that it will be a massive vote loser. But it wasn't that long ago that I thought Trump was a terrible primary candidate who had no chance of making to the general election let alone winning. So I think many of us feel optimism is neither safe nor justified.
... Meanwhile in the UK 'The Times' apparently endorsed this move against Roe v Wade - as the old saying goes 'when people tell you who they are, believe them' - looks like they're going to push the same agenda over here.
Are you sure of that? It sounds very unlikely. Abortion is not quite the same sort of issue here. It's intermittently controversial but not in the way or at the level of ferocious fervour it's clearly become in the USA. It's covered by legislation, and something that's a bit puzzling from a UK perspective is how abortion can be a constitutional issue either way when it's a subject on which, as far as outsiders can see, the US constitution is completely silent.
US-based groups on the Religious Right are funding much of the UK's current assault on trans rights, why wouldn't they also go after abortion?
But trans rights is sort of a new issue, which might, justifiably or not, cause a certain amount of disquiet for some people.
Legal abortion, by contrast, has been around for decades, and I would assume most people in the UK already have a settled opinion on it, leaning towards acceptance. So, American anti-choicers can pump all the money they want into the UK, I don't see where they're gonna find a market for their views.
(And somewhat related to the above, anti-trans in Britain largely coasts on its association with certain feminist tendecies. If it were simply something promoted by religious conservatives, I doubt it would have any traction at all. And who is there in the UK besides religious conservatives who would promote an anti-abortion movement?)
But those religious conservatives are literally funding the feminists ('feminists') driving transphobic hate. The two groups are working together. The LGB Alliance (an anti-trans organisation that is supposedly fighting for the rights of LGB people) opposes gay marriage - it's not actually hard to find anti-choice 'feminists'.
... Meanwhile in the UK 'The Times' apparently endorsed this move against Roe v Wade - as the old saying goes 'when people tell you who they are, believe them' - looks like they're going to push the same agenda over here.
Are you sure of that? It sounds very unlikely. Abortion is not quite the same sort of issue here. It's intermittently controversial but not in the way or at the level of ferocious fervour it's clearly become in the USA. It's covered by legislation, and something that's a bit puzzling from a UK perspective is how abortion can be a constitutional issue either way when it's a subject on which, as far as outsiders can see, the US constitution is completely silent.
US-based groups on the Religious Right are funding much of the UK's current assault on trans rights, why wouldn't they also go after abortion?
But trans rights is sort of a new issue, which might, justifiably or not, cause a certain amount of disquiet for some people.
Legal abortion, by contrast, has been around for decades, and I would assume most people in the UK already have a settled opinion on it, leaning towards acceptance. So, American anti-choicers can pump all the money they want into the UK, I don't see where they're gonna find a market for their views.
(And somewhat related to the above, anti-trans in Britain largely coasts on its association with certain feminist tendecies. If it were simply something promoted by religious conservatives, I doubt it would have any traction at all. And who is there in the UK besides religious conservatives who would promote an anti-abortion movement?)
But those religious conservatives are literally funding the feminists ('feminists') driving transphobic hate. The two groups are working together. The LGB Alliance (an anti-trans organisation that is supposedly fighting for the rights of LGB people) opposes gay marriage - it's not actually hard to find anti-choice 'feminists'.
Hm. Sounds like the old anti-pornography coalition of feminists who hated seeing women's bodies objectified, and fundamentalists who hated seeing women's bodies, full stop.
But I'm not aware that the anti-porn feminists were ever actually getting money from the fundies. If that's what's happening in the UK, that's pretty sleazy of the feminists. Would you be able to link to something about this?
But trans rights is sort of a new issue, which might, justifiably or not, cause a certain amount of disquiet for some people.
Legal abortion, by contrast, has been around for decades, and I would assume most people in the UK already have a settled opinion on it, leaning towards acceptance. So, American anti-choicers can pump all the money they want into the UK, I don't see where they're gonna find a market for their views.
(And somewhat related to the above, anti-trans in Britain largely coasts on its association with certain feminist tendecies. If it were simply something promoted by religious conservatives, I doubt it would have any traction at all. And who is there in the UK besides religious conservatives who would promote an anti-abortion movement?)
No it really isn't a new issue - trans people's issues really came to prominence after WW2 in the UK and the key court cases about their rights (which actually set them back a great deal) were heard in the 1960s and they were all over the papers. This was at the same time as the David Steel act which legalised abortion in some circumstances - the suit which led to Corbett v Corbett was actually filed that year though it wasn't heard till 1969. Long before that gender affirming medical treatment was something you could read about in your pre-war Sunday papers but under the banner of 'sex changes'. What's new is a moral panic whipped up to begin with in the UK by The Times and then almost the entire media over the last six years - so new that I actually watched it happen and watched media attitudes go rapidly and alarmingly backwards over the course of a couple of years.
There's quite a bit I could say about socially conservative women who attack trans people under the guise of 'feminism' and their links to people in the UK who undermine reproductive rights which are crucial to women and people who can get pregnant but it would derail this thread ( look up the Keira Bell case and Gillick Competence for a start if you're interested)
So I'll confine myself to saying these people who stoked the new moral panic began with trans people and moved onto attacks on LGBT people and their charities and their roles in schools - something someone like me who had lived through Section 28 and the ugly Keep the Clause campaign in Scotland thought could never happen on this scale again and now we see the newspaper most responsible for stoking the anti-trans panic in the UK supporting an attack on Roe v Wade... again something even a few years ago you'd have thought was utterly unthinkable, yet here we are.
We have a new breed of social conservative who are prepared to attack trans and LGBT people and to undermine reproductive rights without wearing conservative religion on their sleeve and they have an increasing footprint in our media. And once people start to say this kind of thing in the more Right wing media, it soon gets on the BBC as 'balance' which must be heard and that's how you start to shift the Overton window in the UK...
The TERFs of Prosecco Stormfront have already got into bed with the right-wing evangelicals both here and also with US imports, to the extent that they are suing a rape crisis centre because one of them thought there was a trans woman in group therapy with them (they do not actually know that the woman was trans). If you're suing a rape crisis centre to satisfy your hatred of trans women, clearly the safety and rights of any woman is not a priority for you. It was never about protecting women, it's about policing women.
Or, from a different point of view, a woman who is a victim of rape and was in a group therapy session to help her come to terms with her feelings about being raped was rather upset to find someone she thought had rape equipment in her group.
And she asked the rape crisis centre for a group that wouldn't contain a penis, and they said "we don't do that".
I think there are in fact quite a lot of views that fall somewhere between "I hate trans women" and "It's always wrong to distinguish between trans women and cis women".
Anti-abortion tickets are enormous vote-winners in the US. Many white evangelicals - including women - vote solely on this issue. For many it is seen as THE priority issue.
This is true. Although the majority of Americans support abortion at some level (the answer you get depends on the question you ask: abortions for rape victims or when the mother's health is at significant risk have a lot of support; late term abortions have less support than early ones etc.), there are more people who vote purely anti-abortion than purely pro-abortion.
But you might argue that pro-abortion voters have felt comfortable voting republican because they thought Roe was settled. And now that's not true any more.
(ETA hidden texted transphobic content, Doublethink Admin)
And having massively cross posted - a lot of the problem comes when you have systems like First Past the Post ( UK Parliament voting system) or the US electoral system which can let an electoral minority end up making the rules. Once a minority radical conservative government has got into power, for whatever reason, then they can to a large extent ( at least here) do what they like. Just to take a non gender related example - 76% of the Conservatives own voters oppose privatisation of the UK TV Channel - Channel 4, but it's still something that has been proposed and the government intends it to happen, so having a large public sentiment against something doesn't mean you're safe from it.
My question to US shipmates is this: now that Roe v Wade has been gutted and access to abortion is a straightforward legislative issue, isn't it possible that attempting to restrict abortion rights legislatively could turn out to be a massive vote-loser in state legislatures?
This is where such analyses fall afoul of the Republican Party's other long-term project, hollowing out democracy. They're counting on the use of the inherent counter-majoritarian features of the American constitutional system plus a lot of aggressive gerrymandering to insulate them from the any electoral consequences of their unpopular actions.
It's always interesting to see which issues get classified as "divided". In some cases an issue where there's a 70/30 split is seen as one side having widespread support, but in others anything short of total unanimity gets cast as "people divided over X".
The TERFs of Prosecco Stormfront have already got into bed with the right-wing evangelicals both here and also with US imports, to the extent that they are suing a rape crisis centre because one of them thought there was a trans woman in group therapy with them (they do not actually know that the woman was trans). If you're suing a rape crisis centre to satisfy your hatred of trans women, clearly the safety and rights of any woman is not a priority for you. It was never about protecting women, it's about policing women.
Or, from a different point of view, a woman who is a victim of rape and was in a group therapy session to help her come to terms with her feelings about being raped was rather upset to find someone she thought had rape equipment in her group.
And she asked the rape crisis centre for a group that wouldn't contain a penis, and they said "we don't do that".
I think there are in fact quite a lot of views that fall somewhere between "I hate trans women" and "It's always wrong to distinguish between trans women and cis women".
I think describing anyone's body parts as 'rape equipment' is utterly beyond the pale and I'm tagging @Louise in this because I can't quite believe what I'm reading here.
What happened is that a rape survivor was attending group therapy with other rape survivors. This person assumed that one of the other survivors was trans - without knowing anything about them let alone their body parts - and asked for them to be excluded from the group therapy they were entitled to. The rape crisis centre offered them one-to-one therapy as an alternative, which was refused. It is decidedly not the job of a rape crisis centre to perform genital inspections on survivors seeking group therapy, which is what 'wanting a group without a penis' is asking for - not least because that would amount to the centre committing sexual assault. The complainant wants a group without a person whose body parts they have actually no idea about - reducing a total stranger to a hypothetical body part is pretty appalling.
This is what I mean when I say that it's not about defending women or women's rights. Expecting a rape crisis centre to inspect the genitals of rape survivors so that you don't have to be around trans women makes it pretty clear that women's wellbeing is not actually a priority.
... Meanwhile in the UK 'The Times' apparently endorsed this move against Roe v Wade - as the old saying goes 'when people tell you who they are, believe them' - looks like they're going to push the same agenda over here.
Are you sure of that? It sounds very unlikely. Abortion is not quite the same sort of issue here. It's intermittently controversial but not in the way or at the level of ferocious fervour it's clearly become in the USA. It's covered by legislation, and something that's a bit puzzling from a UK perspective is how abortion can be a constitutional issue either way when it's a subject on which, as far as outsiders can see, the US constitution is completely silent.
US-based groups on the Religious Right are funding much of the UK's current assault on trans rights, why wouldn't they also go after abortion?
But trans rights is sort of a new issue, which might, justifiably or not, cause a certain amount of disquiet for some people.
Legal abortion, by contrast, has been around for decades, and I would assume most people in the UK already have a settled opinion on it, leaning towards acceptance. So, American anti-choicers can pump all the money they want into the UK, I don't see where they're gonna find a market for their views.
(And somewhat related to the above, anti-trans in Britain largely coasts on its association with certain feminist tendecies. If it were simply something promoted by religious conservatives, I doubt it would have any traction at all. And who is there in the UK besides religious conservatives who would promote an anti-abortion movement?)
But those religious conservatives are literally funding the feminists ('feminists') driving transphobic hate. The two groups are working together. The LGB Alliance (an anti-trans organisation that is supposedly fighting for the rights of LGB people) opposes gay marriage - it's not actually hard to find anti-choice 'feminists'.
Hm. Sounds like the old anti-pornography coalition of feminists who hated seeing women's bodies objectified, and fundamentalists who hated seeing women's bodies, full stop.
But I'm not aware that the anti-porn feminists were ever actually getting money from the fundies. If that's what's happening in the UK, that's pretty sleazy of the feminists. Would you be able to link to something about this?
Sorry for providing a Twitter thread rather than an article, but here is a clear thread detailing both the involvement of US fundies and their money in UK anti-trans campaigns. Both the Southern Poverty Law Centre and Pink News have noted the strong presence of the Hands Across The Aisle Coalition and the Family Research Council in this area. That would be the Family Research Council that employed Josh Duggar...
I'd shifted to shipmate on this thread as I'd started posting on it - so I can at the moment only say as a shipmate that as a sexual abuse survivor I find Leorning Cniht's post appalling and deeply transphobic. I've had to use a survivors group and can assure you people don't show their genitals in them and that all genders can and do abuse and rape.
Admin Warning @Leorning Cniht the kind of transphobic content that I hidden texted above is unacceptable, as a breach of our 1st ship commandment, if it happens again you will be going on shore leave.
If anyone chooses to discuss this in Styx, I want to make it crystal clear, that quoting any such material there will also result in suspension.
This is where such analyses fall afoul of the Republican Party's other long-term project, hollowing out democracy. They're counting on the use of the inherent counter-majoritarian features of the American constitutional system plus a lot of aggressive gerrymandering to insulate them from the any electoral consequences of their unpopular actions.
Exactly this - some older historic systems of government seem vulnerable to this - also systems where you get differential age turn out (older more conservative voters more likely to go to the polls). It's not always this way, as the recent French election showed, where older voters were more likely to be the bulwark against the fascist candidate but in the US and UK, it's part of it.
[snip]..... anti-trans in Britain largely coasts on its association with certain feminist tendecies. If it were simply something promoted by religious conservatives, I doubt it would have any traction at all. And who is there in the UK besides religious conservatives who would promote an anti-abortion movement?
This contrasts with Canada where anti-trans attempts to use TERF language have been met with disdain (see Margaret Attwood's recent escapades). Feminists in Canada who profess TERF views are few & far between - this could be because a lot of feminism in Canada sees support for LGBTQ as allyship.
Only the religious right in Canada talk about anti-trans or anti-abortion legislation - maybe 20% support.
The Tories in Canada will not touch either topic - local MPs have been told to stay silent on abortion. The thinking is the 10-20% of the voting population who are not religiously conservative but are open to voting for a conservative party (whatever it happens to be called - there are at least 2 provincial "Liberal" parties who are actually the conservatives) will not stand for any attempt to limit LGBTQ or abortion rights.
[snip]..... anti-trans in Britain largely coasts on its association with certain feminist tendecies. If it were simply something promoted by religious conservatives, I doubt it would have any traction at all. And who is there in the UK besides religious conservatives who would promote an anti-abortion movement?
This contrasts with Canada where anti-trans attempts to use TERF language have been met with disdain (see Margaret Attwood's recent escapades). Feminists in Canada who profess TERF views are few & far between - this could be because a lot of feminism in Canada sees support for LGBTQ as allyship.
Only the religious right in Canada talk about anti-trans or anti-abortion legislation - maybe 20% support.
Well, in Canada, there IS Meghan Murphy and her Feminist Current site, who are actually fairly prominent in the so-called TERF movement. She started out polemicizing heavily against prostitution and pornography, but a few years ago started focusing heavily on opposing trans activism.
You may remember that a while back, one of Murphy's lectures at a Toronto library was protested by activists who wanted the library to rescind her use of the space. I believe Mayor Tory himself spoke out about that, in favour of the protestors.
FWIW, I put "so-called" in front of "TERF" because I'm dubious about the inclusion of the "R". It seems to me that, when applied to feminists, "radical" now means nothing much more descriptive than "they take positions I disagree with."
This is from New Scientist and makes a point mentioned earlier on but has the research to back it up
How repealing Roe v Wade in the US will lead to more women’s deaths
A large body of evidence shows that restricting access to abortion doesn’t reduce the number of abortions, only increases the risk of death for those who need them
Comments
Here & here, and now that I’ve done that for you - you do something for me; go and read the Epiphanies forums guidelines before you post on this thread again.
Hi,
This is a subject related to abortion where many people posting on the Ship have relevant and deeply painful lived experience.
Asking other people to furnish statistics without saying why or for what purpose comes over as an attempt to play debating games or to score points about something which potentially could kill or injure people posting here (or their family members) or bring back traumatic memories for others. Please do not do this.
Would other posters please not follow up those posts?
Edited to add -
Could I also ask that posters on this subject go for their posts being led and informed by what people who could face the results of decisions like this on their own body have to say about it? If that's not you or you've never faced such situations, please go for reflecting and listening to those who do.
Thanks
Louise
Epiphanies Host
Hosting off
Alito made an attempt to deny this suggestion on p. 62 of the draft opinion.
Of course the reasoning in the Dobbs draft applies equally to other privacy cases, as well as substantive due process cases. This is similar to the "this case is not a precedent" clause in Bush v. Gore, which is pretty remarkable for a precedent-based legal system. My guess is that the strategy here is to pretend to not be interested in revoking other rights that would obviously be implicated as invalid under Dobbs' reasoning to divide support by those who support such rights.
As a note of clarification, it should be noted that in this legal context "privacy" not a synonym for "secrecy" but rather designates things that are under the control of private citizens rather than the state.
Texas made it possible for someone - anyone - to sue in the civil courts. They couldn't make it a criminal offence.
But who would have standing to sue? The mother-to-be, the father-to-be, but who else?
It remains to be seen whether the courts will agree that Texas can basically give everyone standing to sue on something like this.
It passed an unenforceable law which springs to life once Roe is overturned.
Essentially because the Republican-appointed majority on the Supreme Court decided that it would not issue any orders or injunctions to force Texas' compliance with federal law. I've got a post on the Texas abortion law thread that details the particulars. Part of the problem here is that people like @Jonah the Whale assume that there are some kind of neutral arbiters that will step in and assure that the rules are followed. There are not. It's all pure nihilistic will to power. More precisely, the six Republican-appointed justices on the Supreme Court were appointed to achieve exactly this result, so it seems a bit nearsighted to wonder how exactly this result was produced.
Ok I take your point and Louise's too. It's not an attempt to do anything other than find out what some of the background. I did not want nor did I/do i seek to offend anyone.
I would've hoped for a more gentler and less sarcastic response though -- perhaps a PM first with an on line confirmation?
I've also seen people talking about reviving and updating the networks and methods which existed when abortion was last illegal for women to be able to get menstrual extractions and the modern medical pill abortions using mifepristone and misoprostol - there's a big article on that in The Atlantic but I didn't want to link in case it was too graphic for people.
This is already scaring many women and people who can get pregnant. People posting here probably already know about women/pregnant people with much wanted pregnancies who died because they lived in countries with abortion bans because of the way those end up compromising gynaecological care for things like sepsis, ectopic pregnancies etc.
Targeting abortion rights has also been noticed to have a connection with failing democracies
[Warning - this article kicks off with a shocking description of what happened to Izabela who died because of the Polish abortion legislation]
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/16/where-democracy-falters-so-do-reproductive-rights/
Meanwhile in the UK 'The Times' apparently endorsed this move against Roe v Wade - as the old saying goes 'when people tell you who they are, believe them' - looks like they're going to push the same agenda over here.
Are you sure of that? It sounds very unlikely. Abortion is not quite the same sort of issue here. It's intermittently controversial but not in the way or at the level of ferocious fervour it's clearly become in the USA. It's covered by legislation, and something that's a bit puzzling from a UK perspective is how abortion can be a constitutional issue either way when it's a subject on which, as far as outsiders can see, the US constitution is completely silent.
The doctrine of "unenumerated rights" is, I understand, at the core of the answer.
It's worth remembering that abortion wasn't always a hot button issue in the US - that status was a deliberate creation of Nixon and his allies among evangelicals in order to get Christians to line up to vote for a far right economic agenda.
Carole Cadwalladr did a lot of good work on the links between Brexit, Trump and the international far right nexus. These things happening are not accidents.
These are connected issues.
It depends on whether you have an expansive or restrictive view of individual rights. The Ninth Amendment would imply an expansive view of individual rights.
One of the objections to including a bill of rights in the U.S. Constitution when it was drafted was the fear that spelling out certain rights explicitly would imply that the people of the new republic possessed only those rights explicitly mentioned in the text of the Constitution. The Ninth Amendment was James Madison's solution to that particular fear, writing in to the Constitution the instruction that individual rights should be construed extensively (that which is not explicitly forbidden is permitted) rather than restrictively (that which is not explicitly permitted is forbidden).
Another thing to keep in mind about the the concept of individual rights under the U.S. Constitution is that most of the enumerated rights are not framed in terms of what individuals are allowed to do but rather in terms of limits on how the government can exercise its powers. For example, the First Amendment states:
In other words it's framed not in terms of "these are the rights individuals have" but rather "these are ways in which Congress (and, after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, the individual states) cannot exercise its powers".
That's a lot of background to get to the basic point that judicial conservatives often see it to their advantage to reverse this standard when it comes to abortion restrictions and other exercises of state power that they like. Instead of asking "where in the Constitution does it mention abortion?" as Alito does it is more appropriate to ask "where in the Constitution does it grant the government the power to make women's medical decisions for them?"
The epithet "acid, amnesty, abortion" was first applied to George McGovern's primary campaign in 1972, though a quick internet search reveals that it was actually Thomas Eagleton, working for McG's primary opponent Muskie, who came up with it. (Eagleton was later McGovern's running mate.)
But I don't think "pro-life" really emerged as a polically influential lobby group until the mid-to-late 1970s; with anti-abortion language being included in the GOP platform in 1976, and becoming increasingly uncompromising with each passing election. I remember 1984 as the year that the party became solidly identified with the Religious Right, but that could also be because that was the first US election I followed with a mature understanding of political ideology. *
* I remember my dad saying in 1980 that if Reagan wins, "they're gonna be back to mom sitting on the porch and apple pie down there." I don't think I quite understood what he meant.
Neil J Young has a twitter thread showing how attitudes to the abortion among the religious right in the US have evolved since the 1970's when it was pretty much a non-issue.
This Politico article goes into more detail about the history and explores the relationship with segregation.
Although UK readers may think that this couldn't happen here, I'm not convinced. The Internet makes it much easier to connect with like minded people and exchange ideas, there's lots of common language between activists here and in the US. That gets amplified by mainstream news outlets who probably should know better but really don't care.
Fred Clarke refers to white evangelical opposition to legal abortion as the 'biblical view' that's younger than the Happy Meal. What's interesting is the way white evangelicals have retconned this fact out of their history.
For those who are interested in a deep dive down this rabbit hole, Clarke later acquired a 1975 edition of Geisler's Ethics and then went on a four and a half part exploration of the book.
US-based groups on the Religious Right are funding much of the UK's current assault on trans rights, why wouldn't they also go after abortion?
We may end up in the rather incredible position of women travelling from the UK to Ireland to have abortions. And NI currently has the most liberalised abortion policy in the UK, since it has been fully decriminalised there - in the rest of the UK it is merely legalised, ie legal in specific circumstances but otherwise illegal.
And a huge part of the debates on trans rights focuses on the fertility of trans men and other trans people who are afab (assigned female at birth). Opponents are absolutely terrified of people deciding that they actually don't mind being less fertile - rather than increasing access to reproductive technologies and gamete freezing as well as obgyn care specialising in trans healthcare (trans men can and do get pregnant and it's actually not that difficult - testosterone alone often doesn't stop menstruation and isn't birth control in itself), they simply want to preserve as many fertile wombs as possible. It seems obvious to me that this language would be easily adopted for anti-abortion purposes. There is already a fairly large anti-BC feminist contingent in the woo earth mother type circles.
But trans rights is sort of a new issue, which might, justifiably or not, cause a certain amount of disquiet for some people.
Legal abortion, by contrast, has been around for decades, and I would assume most people in the UK already have a settled opinion on it, leaning towards acceptance. So, American anti-choicers can pump all the money they want into the UK, I don't see where they're gonna find a market for their views.
(And somewhat related to the above, anti-trans in Britain largely coasts on its association with certain feminist tendecies. If it were simply something promoted by religious conservatives, I doubt it would have any traction at all. And who is there in the UK besides religious conservatives who would promote an anti-abortion movement?)
(*) This is not the same thing as saying that the majority will always vote for pro-choice candidates, since people aren't thinking about every single issue when they vote.
There is a strong anti-trans element on Mumsnet but I would say that it's quite specifically directed towards transwomen rather than trans people in general. They have very little to say about transmen. The logic - and the proponents of this are very clear about it - is that being biologically female confers a disadvantage and that rights for transwomen need to be balanced against this. Regardless of whether anyone agrees with this logic, the point is that it's founded very squarely in the rights of people who are biologically female rather than, say, traditional family values, which would be seen as very quaint there. I don't see opposition to abortion getting any traction among those people at all.
In fact I wonder if ultimately this will be the death knell of conservatives in the US. I understand that despite the divide, abortion is generally supported there. My question to US shipmates is this: now that Roe v Wade has been gutted and access to abortion is a straightforward legislative issue, isn't it possible that attempting to restrict abortion rights legislatively could turn out to be a massive vote-loser in state legislatures?
This is not true. There is enormous moral panic there about trans men and their bodies, disguised under rhetoric about concern for women - because they view trans men as confused women. That trans women (not 'transwomen') bear the brunt of it doesn't mean that trans people assigned female at birth (not 'biological women' because trans men aren't women) aren't also targeted, even if that targeting comes in a more apparently benign form.
The TERFs of Prosecco Stormfront have already got into bed with the right-wing evangelicals both here and also with US imports, to the extent that they are suing a rape crisis centre because one of them thought there was a trans woman in group therapy with them (they do not actually know that the woman was trans). If you're suing a rape crisis centre to satisfy your hatred of trans women, clearly the safety and rights of any woman is not a priority for you. It was never about protecting women, it's about policing women.
Anti-abortion tickets are enormous vote-winners in the US. Many white evangelicals - including women - vote solely on this issue. For many it is seen as THE priority issue.
But those religious conservatives are literally funding the feminists ('feminists') driving transphobic hate. The two groups are working together. The LGB Alliance (an anti-trans organisation that is supposedly fighting for the rights of LGB people) opposes gay marriage - it's not actually hard to find anti-choice 'feminists'.
Hm. Sounds like the old anti-pornography coalition of feminists who hated seeing women's bodies objectified, and fundamentalists who hated seeing women's bodies, full stop.
But I'm not aware that the anti-porn feminists were ever actually getting money from the fundies. If that's what's happening in the UK, that's pretty sleazy of the feminists. Would you be able to link to something about this?
Data Broker Is Selling Location Data of People Who Visit Abortion Clinics
https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7vzjb/location-data-abortion-clinics-safegraph-planned-parenthood
No it really isn't a new issue - trans people's issues really came to prominence after WW2 in the UK and the key court cases about their rights (which actually set them back a great deal) were heard in the 1960s and they were all over the papers. This was at the same time as the David Steel act which legalised abortion in some circumstances - the suit which led to Corbett v Corbett was actually filed that year though it wasn't heard till 1969. Long before that gender affirming medical treatment was something you could read about in your pre-war Sunday papers but under the banner of 'sex changes'. What's new is a moral panic whipped up to begin with in the UK by The Times and then almost the entire media over the last six years - so new that I actually watched it happen and watched media attitudes go rapidly and alarmingly backwards over the course of a couple of years.
There's quite a bit I could say about socially conservative women who attack trans people under the guise of 'feminism' and their links to people in the UK who undermine reproductive rights which are crucial to women and people who can get pregnant but it would derail this thread ( look up the Keira Bell case and Gillick Competence for a start if you're interested)
So I'll confine myself to saying these people who stoked the new moral panic began with trans people and moved onto attacks on LGBT people and their charities and their roles in schools - something someone like me who had lived through Section 28 and the ugly Keep the Clause campaign in Scotland thought could never happen on this scale again and now we see the newspaper most responsible for stoking the anti-trans panic in the UK supporting an attack on Roe v Wade... again something even a few years ago you'd have thought was utterly unthinkable, yet here we are.
We have a new breed of social conservative who are prepared to attack trans and LGBT people and to undermine reproductive rights without wearing conservative religion on their sleeve and they have an increasing footprint in our media. And once people start to say this kind of thing in the more Right wing media, it soon gets on the BBC as 'balance' which must be heard and that's how you start to shift the Overton window in the UK...
And as a flavour of this:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-61314861
And she asked the rape crisis centre for a group that wouldn't contain a penis, and they said "we don't do that".
I think there are in fact quite a lot of views that fall somewhere between "I hate trans women" and "It's always wrong to distinguish between trans women and cis women".
This is true. Although the majority of Americans support abortion at some level (the answer you get depends on the question you ask: abortions for rape victims or when the mother's health is at significant risk have a lot of support; late term abortions have less support than early ones etc.), there are more people who vote purely anti-abortion than purely pro-abortion.
But you might argue that pro-abortion voters have felt comfortable voting republican because they thought Roe was settled. And now that's not true any more.
(ETA hidden texted transphobic content, Doublethink Admin)
This is where such analyses fall afoul of the Republican Party's other long-term project, hollowing out democracy. They're counting on the use of the inherent counter-majoritarian features of the American constitutional system plus a lot of aggressive gerrymandering to insulate them from the any electoral consequences of their unpopular actions.
It's always interesting to see which issues get classified as "divided". In some cases an issue where there's a 70/30 split is seen as one side having widespread support, but in others anything short of total unanimity gets cast as "people divided over X".
I think describing anyone's body parts as 'rape equipment' is utterly beyond the pale and I'm tagging @Louise in this because I can't quite believe what I'm reading here.
What happened is that a rape survivor was attending group therapy with other rape survivors. This person assumed that one of the other survivors was trans - without knowing anything about them let alone their body parts - and asked for them to be excluded from the group therapy they were entitled to. The rape crisis centre offered them one-to-one therapy as an alternative, which was refused. It is decidedly not the job of a rape crisis centre to perform genital inspections on survivors seeking group therapy, which is what 'wanting a group without a penis' is asking for - not least because that would amount to the centre committing sexual assault. The complainant wants a group without a person whose body parts they have actually no idea about - reducing a total stranger to a hypothetical body part is pretty appalling.
This is what I mean when I say that it's not about defending women or women's rights. Expecting a rape crisis centre to inspect the genitals of rape survivors so that you don't have to be around trans women makes it pretty clear that women's wellbeing is not actually a priority.
Sorry for providing a Twitter thread rather than an article, but here is a clear thread detailing both the involvement of US fundies and their money in UK anti-trans campaigns. Both the Southern Poverty Law Centre and Pink News have noted the strong presence of the Hands Across The Aisle Coalition and the Family Research Council in this area. That would be the Family Research Council that employed Josh Duggar...
@Leorning Cniht the kind of transphobic content that I hidden texted above is unacceptable, as a breach of our 1st ship commandment, if it happens again you will be going on shore leave.
If anyone chooses to discuss this in Styx, I want to make it crystal clear, that quoting any such material there will also result in suspension.
Doublethink
Admin
Admin Warning
Exactly this - some older historic systems of government seem vulnerable to this - also systems where you get differential age turn out (older more conservative voters more likely to go to the polls). It's not always this way, as the recent French election showed, where older voters were more likely to be the bulwark against the fascist candidate but in the US and UK, it's part of it.
This contrasts with Canada where anti-trans attempts to use TERF language have been met with disdain (see Margaret Attwood's recent escapades). Feminists in Canada who profess TERF views are few & far between - this could be because a lot of feminism in Canada sees support for LGBTQ as allyship.
Only the religious right in Canada talk about anti-trans or anti-abortion legislation - maybe 20% support.
The Tories in Canada will not touch either topic - local MPs have been told to stay silent on abortion. The thinking is the 10-20% of the voting population who are not religiously conservative but are open to voting for a conservative party (whatever it happens to be called - there are at least 2 provincial "Liberal" parties who are actually the conservatives) will not stand for any attempt to limit LGBTQ or abortion rights.
Well, in Canada, there IS Meghan Murphy and her Feminist Current site, who are actually fairly prominent in the so-called TERF movement. She started out polemicizing heavily against prostitution and pornography, but a few years ago started focusing heavily on opposing trans activism.
You may remember that a while back, one of Murphy's lectures at a Toronto library was protested by activists who wanted the library to rescind her use of the space. I believe Mayor Tory himself spoke out about that, in favour of the protestors.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2318570-how-repealing-roe-v-wade-in-the-us-will-lead-to-more-womens-deaths/
Looking at the possible overturning of Roe v Wade it says: