Stop speculating about how new abortion laws will change society. That reality has been here awhile.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

I see a lot of threads on here with titles like "So, will miscarriages be investigated by police?" or "so are they going to arrest someone who had a miscarriage?" These threads often have a hyperbolic tone, as if these things, even under the new terrible laws in Alabama and Georgia, are so extreme as to highlight the overreach and hypocrisy the right has on this issue.

The thing, the state has been acting like this all along. A short list from Jessica Valenti:

Melissa Ann Rowland of Utah was charged with murder after one of her twins was stillborn - because she refused a c-section.: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mom-arrested-after-utah-stillbirth

Purvi Patel of Indiana was sentenced to 20 years in prison for feticide. She said she had a miscarriage, and no traces of any abortifacent were found in her blood work: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/02/it-isnt-justice-for-purvi-patel-to-serve-20-years-in-prison-for-an-abortion

Angela Carder was 27 years old, 26 weeks pregnant, and had cancer. She was forced to undergo a c-section to try to save the pregnancy despite the risk to her health. It failed and Carder died: https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/08/opinion/the-fruit-of-angela-carder-s-agony.html

Rennie Gibbs of Mississippi was 16 years old when she delivered a stillborn baby - she was indicted on charges of "depraved heart murder" after accusations that she used drugs: https://www.propublica.org/article/stillborn-child-charge-of-murder-and-disputed-case-law-on-fetal-harm

A woman in Louisiana was jailed on charges of second-degree murder after she went to the hospital for unexplained vaginal bleeding. It was over a year before medical records showed that she had a miscarriage: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/08/opinion/pregnant-and-no-civil-rights.html?smid=fb-share

Bei Bei Shuai lost her pregnancy after she tried to kill herself - within a half hour a homicide detective was questioning her. She was arrested for murder: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2012/05/18/153026015/bail-granted-for-indiana-woman-charged-in-attempted-feticide

I've posted this list and talked about these cases IRL with people, and the reaction is always the same: Why didn't I hear about this? Why weren't we marching because of this? And I'll tell you: Because these people were addicted, poor, black or people of color, chronically ill. The most extreme measures are first enacted on people in the margins, and when the larger society doesn't act, it gives oppressors room to move on to wider populations.

To say we're now living in the Handmaid's Tale is to ignore the fact that many of us have been living there for some time, but louder/more numerous/more important voices didn't care. For many of us, though, the privilege we might have -- cis, white, economic, education, whatever -- will, in the end, not protect us.

So as we mobilize to fight these new laws on multiple fronts -- through policy change, through political action, through direct action for affected people -- I ask that each of us be aware of how we have failed marginalized people in this fight, how we may be failing them now in other fights, how our language may imply that some people matter more than others, and how we might learn more to build more solidarity and greater strength.

[Afromania]

1. That's insane. I can't even begin processing how insane that is.

[Left-over]

8. This is garbage heard of in the dark ages.

[liberalmuse]

2. The GOP and religious zealots

Sure know how to bring nightmares into reality. Your list is sickening. The truth is, women are of no value. Children are of no value. People who would otherwise vote left are voting right because they’ve been brainwashed into believing a fetus is more important than a woman, child or any human being living in a country we want to bomb for profit. They are most certainly not pro life.

[katmondoo]

3. This started with Ronald Reagan one of the reasons I really started to hate him.

[delisen]

4. Thank you for this clear post.

[Solly Mack]

5. K&R

Yep

[leftstreet]

6. DURec

[Iliyah]

7. Yes, I'm up on the many many horrible life

experiences that have taken place and are still happening. The situation will only get worse. The repeat of the 1930's. Many women and babies will die. Texas deaths are up concerning forced denial of women's right re: women's choice . .

At this point in time I'm concerned about my 4 daughters and other daughters wherein rape and incest is considered no excuse for aborting. This gives leeway to troubled men the greenlight to rape.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

9. Kick

[watoos]

10. Not only these examples,

but I see that many of the countries with a high % of abortions are also countries with the strictest abortion laws.

[NoMoreRepugs]

11. Well said WGrinder, well said.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

12. Afternoon kick.

[LanternWaste]

13. K&R nt

[WhiskeyGrinder]

14. Evening kick.