#and she said pro choice people were pro abortion

[so-sick-of-17]

I saw a post on reels that was seriously comparing a six week old fetus not being to survive outside the womb to an astronaut not being able to survive space without a suit. I sat there for over five minutes stunned by the complete stupidity.

[boreal-sea]

So according to you, there is no right and wrong of sex, sexuality and gender? So someone can be a male cisgender woman? A lesbian cis man?

You are talking about two completely different concepts here Anon. What I said was that sex ≠ gender. That means someone's sex is not linked to their gender.

I didn't say anything about sexuality.

Sex ≠ Sexuality - who you are attracted to is not predetermined by your chromosomes. A woman can be attracted to men or women or nonbinary people etc. She isn't limited to only liking "the opposite sex" - that's heteronormativity.

Moving on.

"Cisgender" means "person whose gender matches the sex they were assigned at birth". In this case, "cisgender woman" is a woman who was assigned female at birth, still identifies as being female, and who identifies as a woman. Her gender identity matches her assigned sex. So in most cases, if you see "cis woman", she is female.

The exception to this is interesx folks, who may have their sex misidentified at birth or whose sex is complicated, so in that case you could have a cis woman who was assigned male at birth or at some other point in her life. She could be a male cis woman. Intersex folks are allowed to identify as cis if they want to.

But I mean, if a cis woman who is female wants to identify as male, cool. How she identifies is not your business.

And here we come to one of the queerphobe's favorite boogeymen, the "lesbian cis man". Has anyone actually ever met this man before? And I don't mean the guy sitting in the back of his college 101 class joking he's a "lesbian", or 4chan trolls, or cis men misusing dating apps - I mean, has anyone met a cis man who genuinely feels he is a lesbian? I'd like to meet him, I bet he has some fascinating takes on gender and sexuality.

You know what you sound like when you cry about the hypothetical "lesbian cis man"? You sound like pro-lifers going "WoULd YoU aBoRt a bAbY tWo SeCoNdS bEfOrE BirTh??".

If you're a cis lesbian woman and a guy comes up to you and you don't want him hitting on you, just be a grown up and use your words and say "no". Just like you'd turn down anyone else you weren't interested in. Like. I just don't see how this is hard. If he's openly identifying as a cis man, it's pretty easy to say "No, sorry, I'm not into cis men". Being a lesbian doesn't mean you're obligated to date anyone who identifies as a lesbian, that's not how sexuality works. How HE identifies is irrelevant.

If you're a lesbian, you're not attracted to other people based on their sexuality - "lesbian" is a description of your sexuality. You're attracted to people based on a bunch of things - how they present themselves, what gender they are, what political party they are etc. Someone saying "I'm a lesbian" does not mean you have to entertain their advances. Hell, someone saying "I'm a woman" does not mean you have to entertain her advances, either.

Who you choose to interact with and date is 100% of your choice.

[wumbletumblebumble]

In 2020 Trump got roughly 74 million votes and lost. In 2024 he won at roughly 72 million (rounding right now, not every vote has been counted). Trump supporters are going to vote Trump. That didn't change. What changed was how many people turned out to vote against him. It's easy to say that we should just blame Trump supporters, but they already showed their colors. They did what they said they were going to do. The fact that over 70 million people in this country don't support the basic rights of women, trans people, and immigrants is a fact our nation has to deal with, but we already knew that. What hurts is the millions of people who don't support Trump but also don't care enough about those groups to put up with an imperfect candidate. Harris wasn't perfect. You could make the argument she wasn't even good. Trump is worse. Trump with a red Congress (which it looks like he's going to get) is catastrophic.

People didn't just not show up for Harris. They didn't show up for the senators, representatives, and judges that could have helped keep him in check. They didn't show up for the ballot measures that could have influenced their state laws even with conservative leadership.

Do you think it will be easier next round? When more gerrymandering and voter restrictions are in place to further reduce the voices of marginalized communities? When 4 years of denied abortions, deportations, and bigoted violence have already happened? When Trump is done but the GOP is filled with those who want to follow in his footsteps and have seen that the alt right is the winning side?

Not voting is as much a choice as choosing a candidate. If you weighed the pros and cons and decided this was an acceptable outcome, I guess you made the right choice for you. Everyone will do that calculation differently. If you didn't do that and just skipped voting because you weren't enthusiastic about your options, you'll have to come to terms with the consequences.

[televisionenjoyer]

Every time I'm forced to be political on this website I remember the first conscious political choice I made in my entire life. I was around 15, and for spanish class (english class equivalent, for the anglos) we were asked to prepare a debate on abortion rights. Now, me and my friends jointly decided to prepare for debating on the pro-life side, which I did, extensively, not out of genuine passion but by virtue of being a try-hard who always wanted the best grade. But honestly? After some good couple of hours of gathering material the subject was on my mind. I grew more and more hesitant about it, but decided to call it a day and stick to my original decision, after all, you don't have to necessarily agree with the subject you're debating to make a compelling argument, it's mostly about arguing skills.

So the day comes, and my teacher divides the classroom in half: people on the right side would argue against abortion and people on the left side would argue in favor of it. By some divine intervention, perhaps the hand of god himself, my seat ends up around the middle, so my teacher asks me to clarify the stance i was going to take on this debate. I look to my right. All my friends were there. In fact, taking into account that we were a strongly male-majority classroom, turns out all the women were there. I look to the left and it's just a bunch of men. And I was like hell nah, this isn't gonna fly, I can't let a bunch of men fight for the bodily autonomy of women, they're gonna say something stupid. So I choose the pro abortion side. My friends are naturally, utterly betrayed, yet still overly confident.

I'm really nervous, like, what am I doing, am I out of my mind, I'm totally unprepared for this. EXCEPT for the fact that I know all of their arguments. I had unknowingly done some accidental espionage. Also my new debate group are a bunch of idiots, so I join a bit of my own research with some material these guys lend me and I'm straight up illicitly googling shit under the desk, and I'm suddenly shutting down asses left and right, and I'm like, actually convinced of my arguments. The pro life group gets disqualified after a while for being unable to provide a counterargument to something I had said. By the end of the class my teacher reluctantly congratulates me on my performance (she would later on fail a paper of mine on LGBT rights) and my friends say some shit about how it's a really fun exercise to debate against your beliefs and it was really smart on me and I'm like. whatever. because I was fifteen and wasn't going to fight the girls who paint my nails for something like abortion which, at the time this took place, didn't appear feasible in the near future.

TLDR god made a deliberate choice to make me pro abortion

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day:

They are killing us. I don’t know any other way to put it. Yeniifer Alvarez-Estrada Glick. Candi Miller. Amber Nicole Thurman.  And now,  Josseli Barnica—a 28-year old mother, whose smiling face in a selfie she took with her daughter made me weep as soon as I read ProPublica’s headline: “A Texas Woman Died After the Hospital Said It Would be a ‘Crime’ to Intervene in Her Miscarriage.”

Josseli died in 2021, before Roe was overturned but after Texas passed SB 8. Even though she was miscarrying at just 17 weeks into her pregnancy with no chance for the fetus’ survival, doctors told Josseli they couldn’t treat her while there was still a heartbeat. By the time her Houston hospital intervened, she had spent two days with a fetus pressed up against her open cervix, exposing her to bacteria. Josseli died of a preventable infection three days later.  I am heartbroken, but more than that I am just so angry. I am angry that this young beautiful woman is dead. I am angry that her now-4 year-old daughter will grow up without a mother. I am angry that we have to live in a country where our lives are treated as disposable. And I am really, truly furious about what I know will come next.  Anti-abortion groups will rush to send out tweets and press releases with phony condolences, insisting that Texas’ law allows life-saving care. They will blame doctors for not acting quickly enough, the hospital for not giving providers clear enough guidance—even pro-choicers for ‘scaring’ doctors out of treating patients. Anything to shirk blame and to wash the blood off their hands. 

We cannot let that happen.  When Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America comes out with a statement promising that abortion bans protect women, I want you to remember that they lobbied against exceptions for women’s lives. When the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) claims that Josseli should have been given care, remember that the ‘care’ they’re referring to isn’t an abortion—but a forced c-section or vaginal labor. That’s because these groups believe abortion is never necessary to save a person’s life. They use language and push for laws accordingly.  Most of all, I want us to remember—and for all Americans to know—that these organizations and legislators knew this would happen. They knew women would suffer and die as a result of their laws and decided to pass them anyway. There is no press release or talking point that can paper over that truth: they decided our deaths were an acceptable trade-off for a political win. 

When I say that the anti-abortion movement planned for deaths like Josseli’s, I mean it literally. In October 2022, I warned that conservatives had launched a preemptive messaging campaign to blame doctors and abortion rights activists for women’s deaths. Today, two full years later, we’re watching Republicans insist that it’s not bans endangering women, but pro-choice “misinformation” about the laws.  They didn’t just plan to avoid responsibility for our deaths, though—they planned to cover them up. There is a reason that Republicans are disbanding maternal mortality review committees, or stacking them with anti-abortion activists. In Texas, where Josseli was killed, Republicans put a well-known extremist on the state's maternal death board just a few months ago: Ingrid Skop has made a career out of arguing that maternal mortality statistics can’t be trusted and that abortion bans won’t lead to maternal deaths. 

Jessica Valenti wrote in Abortion, Every Day that the anti-abortion movement is gaslighting the people about the deaths caused by strict abortion bans such as Amber Nicole Thurman and Josseli Barnica.

[cheerfullycatholic]

I summarized Reardon at al.’s study in an article in Live Action News. The results of the study show that the common belief that abortion helps rape victims is untrue, at least in many cases. In the study, 88% of the women who aborted regretted their abortions. Only one woman expressed positive feelings about her abortion. The other women who didn’t express regret were ambivalent. They felt they made the right choice but acknowledged that the abortion was traumatic. In her testimony, one woman expressed many of their feelings by saying, “It bothers me a lot, but maybe it was for the best.” Ninety-three percent of those who aborted said they would not recommend abortion to another raped person. Also, 43% of women who aborted said they felt pressured to ‘choose’ abortion by those around them, often their families, or by abortion workers. In startling contrast, not a single woman who had her baby wished she’d had an abortion instead. The only woman who expressed regret was one who felt she should have made a different decision about adoption – but even she was glad she carried to term. Eighty percent of those who gave birth expressed happiness about their children or their situation.

[mandsleanan]

“We have this rapidly changing landscape around reproductive health, and seeking information about it or posting on social media feels like a way to take back control,” Stein said. “It feels empowering to claim authority and to normalize these life choices.”

Text & Doctors' link under cut.

Madison Clark did not celebrate when Donald Trump won the 2024 election. But one thought gave her solace: “At least I don’t have to worry about having a baby.”

In September, Clark, a 24-year-old nursing student from Battle Creek, Michigan, underwent a bilateral salpingectomy, a sterilization procedure that removed her fallopian tubes, ensuring she will never get pregnant. Clark considers the procedure her fail-safe against any further rollbacks of reproductive rights that might occur under the new Trump administration.

Clark had always known she didn’t want to have children. “I just don’t personally see myself on that path,” she said. In 2022, when she learned she was pregnant, she got an abortion. But that same year, the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade with its decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, leading Clark to seriously consider permanent contraception. She’s not the only one.

‘The news cycle was a huge, huge reason that I took sterilization seriously and decided to spring into action.’

The study also found that vasectomy procedures, a form of male birth control, increased 95% – but were still not as popular as tubal sterilizations. A previous study, published last spring, found the number of tubal ligations among women ages 18 to 30 shot up after Dobbs, at a rate of increase double that of vasectomies.

“Patients are scared of losing access to all kinds of reproductive care,” said Dr Sarah K Horvath, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Penn State College of Medicine. “There are people who had the idea of permanent contraception hovering somewhere on their to-do list, and now they’re pushing it up to number one.”

On TikTok, sterilization content has swelled. In one video with more than 73,000 likes, a creator posted footage of herself driving to an appointment and waiting on a hospital bed, with the caption: “Getting sterilized because y’all couldn’t act right in the voting booth.” One popular TikTok doctor shared a “how to” video about tubal sterilization a week after Trump’s inauguration. “I go on Thursday to get this procedure done,” a user wrote in the comments. “I was so worried the current administration would prevent this option so we got it scheduled Asap.”

Krysten Stein, an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College who studies doctor influencers on TikTok, said that conversations on social media about sterilization reflect gen Z’s current political anxieties.

“We have this rapidly changing landscape around reproductive health, and seeking information about it or posting on social media feels like a way to take back control,” Stein said. “It feels empowering to claim authority and to normalize these life choices.”

In some states – including Michigan, where Clark lives – voters have enshrined abortion protections in state constitutions, and according to a recent Gallup poll, a majority (54%) of Americans consider themselves “pro-choice”. That has not stopped Trump from cozying up to an invigorated anti-abortion movement. His first week in office saw him pardon activists who illegally blockaded the entrances to reproductive health clinics, limit funding for overseas groups that provide or advocate for abortions, and sign an executive order declaring gender begins “at conception”, a tenet of the “fetal personhood” doctrine.

Robert F Kennedy Jr, Trump’s nominee for secretary of health and human services, said at his confirmation hearing on Thursday that he believed that “every abortion is a tragedy”.

Trump indicated that he was also open to regulating contraception last May – though the president later posted on Truth Social that he “WILL NEVER ADVOCATE IMPOSING RESTRICTIONS ON BIRTH CONTROL”. This month, the supreme court, stacked with anti-abortion justices, agreed to hear a case that threatens the Affordable Care Act’s coverage of preventative care such as birth control and pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV (PrEP).

“The news cycle was a huge, huge reason that I took sterilization seriously and decided to spring into action,” Clark said. “Now, it’s a common conversation between my boyfriend and me: ‘God, at least we don’t have to worry about having to travel to get an abortion, or having to leave the country for one, or even being forced to carry a child, which is the most scary option in all of this.’”

Julia Wolf: ‘It’s naive to think that other things aren’t on the line, like contraceptives or sterilization.’

“Whether you agree with a woman’s right to choose or not, it’s naive to think that other things aren’t on the line, like contraceptives or sterilization,” said Wolf, who works in social media.

After the 2024 election results rolled in, Wolf scheduled her bilateral salpingectomy procedure as soon as she could – the first Monday in December. Her gynecologist told her that she performed three other sterilization procedures for women that same week.

“I don’t worry that I am going to regret this,” Wolf said. “I’m 100% confident in this decision, and I’m just really glad I did it, especially because everything’s moving so fast since Trump’s been president.”

This month, the congressman Andy Biggs of Arizona introduced a House resolution aiming to set a new standard for women’s healthcare that “should also address the needs of men, families and communities as they relate to women’s healthcare”. The line scared Wolf.

“I just know for a fact that women will never have any input on men’s health, and so for it to be the other way around is just crazy,” she said.

‘I’d change doctors, get denied again’

Not every person who wants a sterilization will receive one – or else they might find the process to get one needlessly arduous.

Some doctors are hesitant to sterilize women under the age of 30, especially if they are unmarried or do not already have children. Though studies show that most women do not regret getting permanent contraception, those who do tend to be between the ages of 21 and 30 at the time of their procedure. (Sterilization is the most common form of contraception for married couples, with 700,000 performed on women annually, half of which are performed postpartum.)

The United States has an ugly history of forced sterilizations. In the 20th century, they were performed under eugenics programs aimed at controlling “undesirable” populations such as minorities, poor people, unmarried women or the mentally ill. Today, people on Medicaid are legally required to wait 30 days after signing a consent form to be sterilized – in theory, to prevent vulnerable people from being manipulated into undergoing forced sterilization as they were in the past. But activists say this practice is outdated and unfair. For one, there is no such restriction for people on private insurance. Thirty-day waiting periods also recall delaying tactics used in red states to limit abortion access.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) says doctors should advise patients about “reversible alternatives” such as vasectomy or other forms of birth control, and emphasize the permanence of tubal ligation or salpingectomy. But the ACOG also notes that doctors should “avoid paternalism” and “not [impose] thresholds based on age or parity or both for permanent contraception”.

“Respect for an individual patient’s reproductive autonomy should be the primary concern guiding permanent contraception provision and policy,” the ACOG says.

In her own practice, Horvath, the OB-GYN, doesn’t care so much why a person wants the procedure. She just wants them to be sure they’re making the best decision. “There are 18 different contraceptive methods, and no one is perfect,” Horvath said. “I ask that people think through all of the choices. If they’re just really worried about getting through the next four years, have they thought about an IUD? That might leave the door open for you, if permanent sterilization doesn’t feel like the right thing yet, or if you feel like you’re really just having this reaction out of fear.”

Some young people say they’ve been turned away from the procedure for sexist reasons. Kasey Peterson, a 25-year-old property manager who lives in Oceanside, California, remembers playing with Barbies as a child and hearing her father say: “You’re going to make a really great mother one day.”

‘People are worried about protecting themselves in the future.’

The doctors’ reasoning for delaying the procedure seemed straight out of the 1950s: her “future husband” might want children; she wasn’t mature enough to make a permanent decision. They said to come back in a couple of years, and then maybe they’d talk.

“The overall tone was that I didn’t know what I wanted as an individual,” Peterson said. “It was irritating. They were basically telling me that if I was pregnant right now, they would want me to keep the pregnancy, that I was emotionally mature enough for that, but I wasn’t emotionally mature enough to decide that I don’t want children.”

Peterson’s partner considered getting a vasectomy, which his doctors were more than happy to perform. “But I decided I would rather do it for myself, for insurance reasons, but also because if I were to get assaulted by someone else, his vasectomy wouldn’t cover that.”

Young people navigating the serpentine process of finding OB-GYNs willing to perform sterilizations come together in forums on Facebook and Reddit, where they vent their frustrations, cheer each other on and share a Google doc of vetted doctors. Peterson eventually found her doctor through that list, and she now serves as an administrator for the Childfree and Sterile/Seeking Sterilization Facebook group.

“When Roe v Wade was overturned, and when Trump got elected, our group got absolutely flooded,” Peterson said. “It’s great that people are finding a community and a resource, but I hate how it happened. People are worried about protecting themselves in the future.”

-CF Reddit's List of Childfree-Friendly Doctors-

[secularprolifeconspectus]

I don’t get why so many pro life people are celebrating the Orange Creature. He isn’t pro life, he paid for some of his own children to be aborted, and the only reason he’s not a major pro choice proponent is to avoid losing certain groups of voters. He has no respect for human beings, which is essential to being pro life.

(Let’s be real, there are several mothers he’s coerced into getting abortions. He’s openly been a whore who bragged about how much he fucks girls and women. He’s been convicted of rape. He boasted having the same taste as Epstein before the public found out about the island of sex slaves.)

Seriously, how is he supposed to be pro life?

No disagreement here, just some notes.

First of all, icymi, Trump has said he thinks 15 week bans are too stringent, has voiced support for the abortion pill, and has taken a stance against a federal abortion ban. And his wife, Melania, said in her memoir that she's pro-choice. There is nothing to debate here; Trump is pro-choice. That is a fact.

I think most pro-life people celebrate his win because he is less extreme than the pro-abortion democrats. It's the "lesser of two evils" bullcrap. There's also some hope that he will pardon pro-life political prisoners, which I loathe. The idea behind doing civil disobedience is sacrifice; when the consequences of your actions are whisked away, it defeats the point of nonviolence.

When the people of India rallied behind Gandhi, they hoped for harsher punishments, celebrated when they were dealt and honored the sufferers for their sacrifice. It was the dissonance caused by their undue suffering, and their choice to sacrifice, that ultimately put the powers-that-be in a dilemma, challenged their legitimacy, and undid their oppression. Why don't pro-lifers show such tenacity? I think it's because of their reactionary conservative ethos. A revolutionary campaign of nonviolence can only come from a progressive spirit.

Anyhow, John and I discuss in our book how Trumpism has deeply set back the pro-life movement. More could be said; I just don't feel like saying it. I'm truly not trying to cause a rift with my pro-life allies who voted for Trump; but if we can't critique each other candidly, then we lack the unity to be an impactful movement.

[traegorn]

It's me again, following up. We're definitely not going to the wedding but are still going to pay for the hotel and things. I don't really mind paying for things because for the first time in our lives we can actually afford things like this, but probably need to dial it back from here on. I've always said if I got money I'd try to make everyone around me have an easier time so 130k a year after making 20k for forever feels like infinite money glitch. And like, I don't HATE her, I just mostly feel indifferent towards her. At worst, annoyed. But she's kinda always been there and hasn't really done anything heinous so it never really occurred to me to just stop interacting. The worst thing she's done to me personally is for some reason she told my mother I'd had an abortion when we were teenagers? I'm not sure why? I guess to get me in trouble or something? My mom is very pro choice and did not care. Ive never been pregnant so i find it extremely funny honestly. She doesn't know i know that. I did not grow up very popular so I guess I have a problem of being overly loyal. I really don't like her husband though. Also, I told my spouse that people on the internet think he's being passive aggressive about it and he agreed! He did not mean to be letting it leak out so he's promised to take the dress to a place on his next day off. He works 16 hour days 6 days a week so there really isn't much time anyways. I just kinda feel bad about making an excuse to not go. I feel like a bad person for not following through on it but I also feel like I've given them enough, way more than anyone else but the venue has given them. I don't know yet how to tell the difference between when something feels bad because it's new vs it feeling bad because it's not good for me.

And if you think this whole thing is wild, I have much more that's worse. The advice is nice and I feel like it gives you a break for a minute from the everything lol

"The worst things she's ever done to me..."

And then describes something that could have turned out really badly in a lot of households. I mean, it's true -- you're adults now and that happened when you were a teenager, so I get why it's in the rearview -- but again, wild.

And look, you may be closing a door on this relationship by doing this. But, like, you paid for a bunch of stuff too -- so it's not like you left her high and dry.

Like this sounds like the kind of person who if I had the kind of relationship you have with them, I'd be at most Facebook friends, meanwhile you're out there paying for chunks of the wedding. You've already gone above and beyond what most people would do in this situation, and y'just kind of have to do what's right for you.

(Oh, and don't worry about me -- if I needed a break I'd just turn off reblogs on the couple of posts that are circulating right now. My stress levels are going to be high this close to an election whether I'm on Tumblr or not. 😆)

[anamericangirl]

Hi, I'm pro-choice (or pro-abort as you say)

i want to have an actual discussion, a lot of left-wing people just want to throw insults and punches out and thats kinda stupid. I think that women, should have a say in the matter of abortion. I think some people are using abortion as birth control. which is stupid. birth control is definitely needed in those situations, not an abortion. i dont really think teens should be having sex, but lets face it; they do. abortion is needed (when the mother wants to) for girls that have been raped, for incest, for teens who wont be supported, for mothers who may die, for people who were being completely safe and arent ready.

whats your take on my opinion?

Hi there, I definitely agree there are many cases where abortion is used as birth control and throwing out insults and stuff, regardless of what side you’re on, is stupid and unnecessary. I also agree that teenagers shouldn’t be having sex, even though they do.

The last half of what you wrote I think is where we start to disagree.

I’d be interested on what you mean when you say abortion is “needed.” Because when I hear someone say abortion is needed, I get the impression they are saying it’s necessary and has to happen, regardless of what may or not be wanted.

So if abortion is only “needed” in those cases if the mother wants it, but not “needed” if the mother doesn’t want, then that kind of implies it’s not needed in either scenario.

- For rape, I can certainly sympathize with the mother and understand why she might want an abortion, but I don’t think it’s needed and I think it’s still not a justification for abortion. The foundation of my belief is that the unborn are completely human and completely alive from the moment of conception and abortion kills a baby and I don’t think it’s ok to kill people because their mother was raped. We don’t even kill the rapist, so the baby certainly doesn’t deserve the death sentence. What I do the mother needs in this case is thorough medical care, emotional and even financial support. Abortion does not reverse rape or trauma and can even bring more trauma to the woman, which the pro-abortion lobby doesn’t ever highlight. And there have been plenty of testimonies of women who gave birth after rape who said they found it to be incredibly healing.

- As for incest, I generally consider that the same as rape unless this encounter was consensual. If it was rape my answer is the same as above but if it’s consensual why would the baby need to die?

- When we’re talking about a life or death situation for the baby, which we are in abortion, a teen girl who might not be supported is not justification for actively and intentionally killing a child. There are other options here that a lot of people seem to ignore or forget about.

First, there’s adoption.

Second, there are several pro-life organizations that offer support to people in exactly those situations. Let Them Live is a really good one that raises money and items for teens and women who don’t have any support elsewhere. Crisis pregnancy centers are also very good places to receive pregnancy support for free, including medical help. They get a bad rap in the media because they help women without providing abortion services but they are great places for any woman who is pregnant and needs any kind of support. Local churches are also a good place to seek out help and support.

- We are often told that abortion is necessary when the mother might die, but that’s actually not true. There aren’t any cases that threaten the life of the mother where the treatment is an abortion. In cases that threaten the life of the mother the baby is either already dead or dying. Those are medical emergencies and she should be seen at a hospital not an abortion clinic. Those cases are usually treated by delivering the baby early, not killing them. The mother should absolutely be treated as necessary and every effort should be made to save both lives. Many times both lives can’t be saved and the baby may die anyway in efforts to save the mother, but not because they were intentionally killed by an abortionist.

- In cases where people used protection and got pregnant anyway I absolutely don’t think abortion is justified. That’s essentially using abortion as birth control.

When looking at these issues, you have to ask yourself if you would be ok intentionally killing a born child in any of these cases and if you’re not then you shouldn’t be ok with aborting a baby in any of them either because it’s the same thing (there’s also the fact that abortion just isn’t safe, even for the woman, and it doesn’t become safe just because someone wants it or is struggling).

Abortion is never the answer.

[boxx-sama]

Small Yuno Rant

CW: Abortion, mentions of sexual activity, mentions of suicide

Why Yuno Kashiki is NOT just “a girlboss”, as she has been mischaracterized by the Milgram fandom for who knows how long.

Oh boy.

I think most of you are already aware of the treatment Yuno gets by the fandom.

“Yeah girl, you abort that baby!”

“She did nothing wrong, she’s a girlboss!”

“She doesn’t regret anything!”

Well, to that, I say:

Do you know ANYTHING about Yuno, really?

These are all highly watered-down statements that prove that people see Yuno merely as some sort of feminine icon who did what was right for her body. And, that is right to an extent. I am pro-choice. But I don’t think they realize how unhealthy Yuno’s cravings were, how messed up her mindset is, and just how jaded she is.

I will debunk these statements one by one, so without further ado, let’s go.

Abortion in Japan, and Yuno’s Family

I’ve done my research on this, and I can easily say that getting a proper abortion in Japan is absolute hell. Taken from this article, an excerpt reads:

In Japan, abortion is essentially a crime except for certain indications. These indications have to do with mental illness, hereditary disease, leprosy, threat to the health of the mother, and pregnancy resulting from rape or threat. These indications entered into force under the eugenic protection law of 1948. On January 1, 1991, a new regulation became effective that shortened the duration of pregnancy termination from 23 weeks of gestation to 21 weeks in view of the advancement of medicine that made it possible for prematurely born children to survive outside the uterus.

Despite the limited availability for abortion, it is definitely seen as a crime by Japanese people. It is known that women are supposed to be held responsible for the death of the baby, not the doctors or pills that may be taken.

And even then, the chance of a proper abortion is slim. For example, birth control pills. The pill is not covered by Japanese Health Insurance, and the cost is approximately 3,000 yen per month. That is about $20 USD. Yuno is not struggling for money, either, as revealed by her T2 VD:

“I'm not pitiable. My family gets along super well. And I'm not particularly struggling for money. I decided, of my own free will, to do it because I felt that it was necessary for me.”

This adds evidence to my theory that Yuno did not want to be publicly shamed for having an abortion at such a young age, and as such, went to more extreme, private methods to rid of the baby; the latter of which I will get to later.

As I previously mentioned, abortion is looked down on in Japan. A few reasons for this include cultural influences, societal expectations, and historical factors, which contribute to a certain level of stigma. Traditional values emphasizing family continuity and societal norms may influence perceptions.

In a previous theory I had, I stated that Yuno had a highly religious family, and her own morals went against theirs. However, she loved her family, so she tried to seek a “cure” to her depression through sex. Many interrogation questions can add to this theory:

Question 4: Do you believe that god exists?

Answer: Obviously not.

(Note: The original TL had just said “no”, but Yuno has でしょ at the end of her sentence, and this can be used to emphasize a phrase or question, to my knowledge. As such, I changed it to be more fitting!)

Question 9: What do you think of your family?

Answer: I love them.

Perhaps she did everything behind their backs not only due to possible religious/traditional views, but because she wouldn’t want to be seen as someone who is “bad” for chasing after her ideals. On a slightly seperate note, this theme is fairly prominent in Umbilical:

Am I a bad girl? Please don’t answer What do you want to do? Please tell me

There are like more examples from the second trial interrogation, so if there are any let me know!

What Yuno Did + Her Regret

I think everyone has a general consensus as to what Yuno’s “murder” is. She participated in compensated dating, got pregnant at some point, and had an abortion, most likely by jumping off a set of stairs to kill the baby and herself.

This can be inferred by her Undercover shot, where she is standing at the end of her apartment balcony, seemingly holding her stomach from behind:

And not just this photo, but this brief shot from Umbilical:

(Fun little detail, but the whole aesthetic part of her MV is designed to be pink like a uterus and the balloons/white specs flying around may be sperm? Which implies she was “drowning” in warmth. Interesting.)

But wait, why would Yuno take herself as well as the baby? I like to think of it this way.

During her compensated dating, she met a man that she liked. One man who saw her for her, and not a complete facade. These dates, where she seems more like herself, are with said man—

The school uniform Yuno, as well as yellow Yuno.

It’s known that Yuno does look less happy in her other two personas by the second bridge, so I think she was more comfortable playing a lively character with this client because it felt more close to how Yuno wanted to represent herself.

So, progressing to Tear Drop, this man wears a gray coat. I saw a theory that I agree with once but forgot the source of it, so I’ll simply state it. I think that the Yuno in lingerie is representative of herself, and the Yuno in her uniform is the client. They keep and having sex and loving each other, but Yuno is betrayed when she finds out the man was using her for money and left her due to the pregnancy and then her life comes crashing down after. I’m kinda shortening this because this was supposed to be short but ended up long instead.

Does Yuno regret what she did? Yes, to an extent.

And anyone who doesn’t read into her character should really reconsider it!

[piosplayhouse]

This didn’t quite fit into my response to the mpreg survey, but I’ve been thinking about it and wanted to mention it to you somewhere— I’ve noticed that a lot of mpreg content has a passive or even overtly pro-life stance. The most dramatic outliers are what stick with me ofc (I once read a fic where Shen Jiu said he wouldn’t get an abortion because “he’s not a child murderer”. The irony.) but for they most part it’s just a subtle slant. Do you think this is caused by the fact that, by the plot’s necessity, they gotta force their blorbo to have that baby (inserting moral objections to abortion like a horror movie inserts reasons for cell phones not to work)? Do you think that people with that belief set are more likely to have a pregnancy kink? Do you have other ideas for causes I’m not considering?

Ok I can only speak to things I've read and other responses I've seen (that fic sounds so ?????) so I do have to say the majority of things I've read (esp in scum villain) are mostly pro choice leaning where if a character gets pregnant they're given the chance to abort and usually don't take it (insert sy voice binghe I would never abort you) (however I do remember reading a wangxian fic where lwj drives his coworker wwx to a clinic to get an abortion (pre wangxian relationship) because lwj wanted to support wwx in his decision bc lwj was horrified that his mother was never given a choice on whether or not she wanted to be a mother and suffered a lot because of that, which was a really interesting subversion on the topic I think)

There is a trend I've seen in the responses to the poll where some people appreciate mpreg as a genre that takes bodily autonomy to a sort of emphasized issue, particularly outside of omegaverse/transfic (responses on whether or not people see trans pregnancies as mpreg were actually pretty even from all demographic groups) where there's this heightened sense of unexpectedness and urgency to the idea of pregnancy. As far as I know, there are a nonzero amount of people who use this framework to work through their own issues with a sense of detachment-- for example, many people mentioned having pro-life family members in real life who are pressuring them to get pregnant, and they like mpreg that either subverts that idea (what if a character was given the space to get pregnant on their own terms with full family support) or portrays it to an extreme (what if a character was being forced to not abort) but from the safe distance of fiction where they can just pull away whenever things get too real. It gives them a sense of agency and control over a situation that in real life they don't have control over, similar to how a lot of trauma kinks work.

Of course, there are equal numbers of people who are vehemently uncomfortable with that as well, so that should be considered too. On a broader demographic level, since much of fandom skews (unfortunately) American, there's also of course the probability that a lot of people have just grown up with heavy evangelical pro-life beliefs/influences, and this either consciously or subconsciously affects the way they view pregnancy as a topic. In terms of the actual heavy pro-life evangelicals, I think the majority of them would be opposed to mpreg on the basis of lgbt topics (lol) but it has been long speculated that quiverfull movement and adjacent adherent people do have some form of pregnancy kink that unfortunately they work out in real life on real children rather than in fiction, based on how they treat their coming baby/themselves while pregnant versus how they actually treat their children when they come out (unfortunately very poorly in most cases)

Anywayy that's all kind of speculation, but I hope that helps a little bit. There are always people with a billion different reasons for everything, and it would be impossible to capture those all in the span of a Tumblr ask response, but I hope this gives you something to chew on! If anyone else would like to add things to this feel free to reply or reblog or send another ask with your thoughts, it would be much appreciated :)

[beardedmrbean]

Charrise Lane, a senior at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, wants to re-establish what would be the only active chapter of College Republicans at a historically Black college or university. There’s just one roadblock: She can’t find an adviser for the group to be recognized on campus.

According to FAMU guidelines, no student organization can become official without one.

“I’ve reached out to professors,” said Lane, a 25-year-old public relations major and registered Republican.

“The two that responded said they couldn’t do it,” she said, adding, “So it’s not like I’m not trying.”

While rare, College Republicans have had homes at HBCUs in the past. As recently as 2016, there were at least four HBCUs with GOP chapters: Howard University, Morehouse College, Central State University and FAMU. 

The College Republican National Committee, which has been around since 1892, is an unofficial affiliate of the Republican National Committee. The group touts a presence on nearly 2,000 campuses across the U.S., according to its website. While there are more than 100 HBCUs in the country, none are home to an active, official College Republicans club.

The national organization did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Lane said she and three other classmates have met at least twice this school year in an unofficial capacity, and attended a presidential debate watch party with Florida State University’s College Republicans. But being unable to form the organization on her own campus, where 7 in 10 students are registered as Democrats, has been frustrating. FAMU has consistently been able to field an active chapter of College Democrats.

“I believe that Black people are needed on both sides,” said Lane, who noted that her conservative views have been heavily shaped by her Christian upbringing. 

In a four-minute video posted to X this summer, Lane explained that she is a Republican because she believes in a strong traditional family unit, has a more holistic view on preserving life, including opposing abortion, and supports school choice among other issues — values she said are representative in the history and ideals of the Republican Party, but not necessarily reflective of the voices that are currently at the forefront of the GOP.

Because Lane and her like-minded peers aren’t being catered to on campus, she said she won’t give up on her quest to bring a chapter of College Republicans back to FAMU.

School officials told NBC News that any new campus organization needs at least 10 members and a faculty adviser with at least three years’ standing at the school to become a registered student organization. In certain circumstances, FAMU is open to working with students — but they have been unable to successfully partner with Lane to date.

Felicia Barnes, assistant director of student organizations at FAMU, said the university would welcome the College Republicans back to campus. This week, Barnes shared names of more professors for Lane to reach out to.

“They’ve been here before, so it’s not like it hasn’t been the organization here,” she said.

Lane recognizes that, in many ways, as a self-identified pro-Black conservative at an HBCU, she is an anomaly, sitting at the intersection of what some critics would call contrasting ideologies. She’s been ridiculed, she said, by “both sides” that argue her traditional politics are often at odds with her own desire for progress for Black Americans.

“From Republicans I get called a Black supremacist and sometimes they say that I race bait, and then, from the Dems, sometimes I get called an Uncle Tom” and other racial slurs, she said, for her affiliation with Republicans. 

“Sometimes you don’t fit in with either side when it comes to your opinions.”

Still, she said, after transferring to FAMU last fall after stints at a majority white private Christian college in South Carolina and local community college because she didn’t connect with many of her classmates or professors, she yearns to be around her people — even if most of those around her disagree with her political views.

History of College Republicans at FAMU

The last time the College Republicans had an active chapter at FAMU was during the 2018-2019 school year, according to alum Marquise McMiller. 

Currently leading government relations for one of Florida’s largest public school systems in Orlando, McMiller re-established the organization during his junior year in 2015 and led the group as president for three years, he said, before someone else took it over in its last year before going dormant.

“At FAMU, the College Democrats are always prevalent,” said McMiller, who earned a bachelor’s degree, master’s degree and a Juris Doctorate from the school. “I felt like there needed to be representation for the other party.”

At the time, McMiller said the chapter had six members that met regularly, and while there wasn’t significant backlash to the organization on campus, he said the group’s presence did make some students on campus uncomfortable. 

McMiller, who describes himself as an evangelical moderate and fiscal conservative, said that the current political landscape on campus is far more hostile than it was years ago.

“It was not as polarizing of a time as it is now,” he said. “And I’m certain that, given the policies of the governor and the stances that the Legislature has taken with the supermajority, the climate at FAMU is probably not responsive … to stand with the Republican Party.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, in recent years has taken aim at diversity, equity and inclusion efforts including restricting how race can be taught in school, blocking the teaching of AP African Studies classes, and defunding diversity programs at public colleges.

Lending support to Lane, McMiller sees the push to once again establish the College Republicans chapter on campus as a “novel effort.” But while McMiller is still a registered Republican, he has grown disillusioned with his party and said he is unsure of how he will vote in November. 

“It is my strong position that African Americans shouldn’t be a part of either party,” he said.  “I think both parties do not give the African American community its full attention.”

College Republicans back at FAMU?

The decision to push to bring back the College Republicans at FAMU for Lane didn’t happen overnight, nor has it been a particularly comfortable undertaking for her. With more than 70,000 followers on Instagram and X, Lane is a prominent voice within young, Black conservative spaces. She chose to spend her first year at FAMU not speaking publicly about politics on campus, in hopes of building an organic community with those around her, especially after failing to doing do so at her previous school.

It worked for some time, she said, but when people in her orbit began to notice her on social media, many of the relationships she built with people on campus shifted. Now, she doesn’t know who to trust. Most weekends, Lane said she finds herself working or keeping to herself after being menaced online for her stances.

“People have threatened to go fight me,” Lane said. She said she’s received intimidating messages against her and her mission through an anonymous social app called Fizz, where FAMU students have to login with their school email address to get access to campus-specific posts. “And being threatened these days doesn’t faze me, but being threatened by students, it kind of shook me a little bit because these are my peers.” 

She detailed some of the threats, along with screenshots, in an Instagram video.

Tevon Blair, a co-founder of Xceleader, a nonprofit group that empowers HBCU students and alumni to be leaders, said it is “important for HBCU campuses to offer spaces for students to explore all political perspectives.” It allows students to make more informed political decisions. 

Still, said Blair, who leads the nonprofit group’s Vote HBCU Program, “HBCU students, specifically those located in Southern states, often see the direct impact of Republican-led state legislatures on their education. This includes chronic underfunding of state-supported HBCUs and the introduction of laws that influence how students vote, learn, and experience college life.”

About a month from the presidential election, Lane said she will continue pushing to re-establish the College Republicans as a new administration at the school gets put in place. Regardless of what happens, she doesn’t expect the entire campus to like her, she said, but she does expect respect.

“At the end of the day, politics is politics,” she said. “You shouldn’t threaten someone’s life over it.”

[beareadsbookz]

You guys know that you can (and in my opinion, should) be pro choice while recognizing that abortion can still be traumatizing???

I’ve had multiple people questioning my inclusion of “abortion” in the trigger warnings list for my review of The Spirit Bares Its Teeth. I did not put it there because I believe abortion is wrong or bad and we should be scared of it; I put it there because there are people who have trauma around abortions.

One woman asked why I included it, and she was actually polite so I assumed she was asking in good faith. I explained that some people have had to abort pregnancies they wanted, some people were forced or coerced into abortions they did not consent to, some people had medical complications after their abortions, and some people simply found the experience of having an abortion to be traumatic in itself, despite choosing it and needing it, because it’s a very hard thing for a body to go through even if you want it. I also explained that in the particular case of The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, I included it because the abortion scene in that book is a teenage girl cutting herself open to remove a fetus after she was assaulted. It was a very gory scene and was upsetting to read for me, who has no relevant trauma, and I felt I would not be doing my due diligence to omit that from the trigger warnings.

The woman then replied and said that “that SPECIFIC case is valid I suppose” completely dismissing all of the other examples I gave? As if those are not also perfectly valid reasons not to want to read about an abortion??

Multiple things can be true at once. Yes, abortion is healthcare and is a necessity. It has saved lives and helped so many people. That does not change the fact that some people will still have trauma around that topic. Recognizing that is not and never will be “pro life ideology”, as some people have told me.

[goth-mami-writer]

A post about my life lately.

(If you fucking care ✌️🫠)

⚠️Tw: There's some mentions in this that may stir certain emotions regarding✨️pro-choice✨️mindsets (abortion) and vomiting. So if you think that's gonna upset you, don't interact pls. Thx.⚠️

Soooooooo-

I've been away. And here's why without being theatrical - I found out I was pregnant again. And....I wasn't happy.

I'm a mom to 1 already and...I knew that I couldn't do it again. It's hard, to be as frank as I can. The physical effect of pregnancy on the body is something...I despise? I had awful, TERRIBLE sickness the first time anddd fuck, it was the same this time.

Yeah, no. You can go ahead and count me out.

Well- Were you using BiRtH CoNtrOl?!, you may ask?

Yes. Abso-fuckin-lutely. I had an IUD inserted two months after I had my first kid. Cause FUCK THAT. I knew I didn't want another. My son's awesome. Being his mom is my reason for living. But pregnancy is not for me.

So- this being the decision, I fucking called the one person I goddamn trust and that's Mera. ❤️ @short-honey-badger

And bitch, did we plan a trip. We had to drive OUT OF OUR STATE TO RECEIVE THE CARE NECESSARY. (That's a topic for another day tho t-.-t )

✨️Anyways,✨️ Mera is a badass and drove me to said appointment as I'm fighting the most debilitating nausea. All I could stand to eat without vomiting was fucking popsicles and slushies. So yum at 5 am, BTW.

~But here's where shit gets wild~

I show up, ready to have this done. Get on with my life. Maybe start writing again because I know that I'll feel better. The nurses and staff were incredible and sweet. But there was one problem.....my IUD was out of place, they tell me.

Okay? I knew that, right? Obviously, that's why it didn't work and I got pregnant. Makes sense.

NONONONO. I'm laying on a table out of my home state, laughing gassed out of MY FUCKING MIND, with a lady doctor telling me in the calmest demeanor that she can that I need FUCKING ✨️EMERGENCY SURGERY✨️

LIKE. HOW DO YOU REACT...TO THAT?

So...the staff is obviously letting me recover from the procedure- THE ONE I JUST HAD. and now I'm being fed all this medical jargon basically saying that if I didn't receive surgery, this IUD was gonna tear its way into my other organs because it was already embedded in the muscle tissue of my abdomen.

Fucking AWESOME.

Luckily, all these people were contracted to the local hospital in this city and they were going to let them know I was coming over and all that good jazz, but I basically needed to get over there. Like...now. RIGHT NEOW. 💀

So then it's me and Mera just navigating parts of a city that we just DO NOT fucking know, trying to get me to said hospital where this surgery needed to take place. It wasn't far but goddamn this hospital had absolute SHIT parking. It was a monster to fucking navigate as well. Luckily, I was on some good pain meds that were keeping me kinda stable, but ooohhhh, not for long.

We get checked into the ER and yeah, I started HURTING. Not to mention also, viciously nauseous once again. But this time, because I hadn't eaten anything since 5am and I was told that it would basically be fucking ILLEGAL for me to eat again until I got off this operating table.

Fucking. AWESSOMMEE.

(I thought you said it was an emergency, why didn't they have you in OR yet??)

I HAD TO WAIT FOR THESE MFS TO GET THERE, HOLD ON.

My particular case needed staffing of crazy ass doctors to oversee this procedure. I swear to God, I met like 5 people in the four hours that I sat in the emergency room before being prepped for surgery.

I was rolled out for testing like four different times! All kinds of shit just being shot into my IV while I'm still fucked up on the first dose of morphine that's still whooping my ass in and out of consciousness as Mera is at my bedside like,

"O.o u okay?" (Bc she's an angel that stayed with me during the entirety of this fucking insanity like T-T)

FINALLY. I got into my fucking surgery. It went fine, everything is fine. But goddamn, I'm exhausted. Mera was exhausted. We'd been up for almost 24hrs at this point in the day and now I'm finally being admitted into an actual room for post-op recovery.

That next morning before my discharge, I was let know the gravity of my situation and things like that. I was reassured that nothing I did caused this IUD to move. And that meant one thing-

It was never inserted correctly in the first place.

✨️So✨️ let me be the first one to tell you- please. For the love of FUCK. Go get your IUD checked. Via fucking ultrasound.

Don't let that sassy nurse stick a speculum in your fuggin hoo-haa and tell you she can see the strings so you're good.

Guess what? EVERYONE SAW MY STRINGS TOO.

Check your IUD!!! Or you're gonna be knocked up, getting a little pregnancy✨️deletion✨️ in a strange state where a really nice lady doctor is gonna tell you that you're like weeks away from internally bleeding and need dire abdominal surgery to prevent that. And all you're gonna have is your bestfriend who you feel terrible for bc she didn't sign up for any of this bullshit. But there you are, passed out on morphine, hungry, confused, nauseous and WAITING FOR SURGEONS.

GO TO THE GYNECOLOGIST. NEOW. 💀

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Alanna Vagianos at HuffPost:

Many Republicans want you to believe that women are getting abortions in the eighth and ninth months of pregnancy simply because they can. The right-wing rhetoric has been used to criticize abortion rights supporters and Democrats for years. Even Donald Trump — who up until recently consistently dodged the topic of abortion — has started repeating the myth.

Democrats “support abortion up to and even beyond the ninth month,” the GOP presidential nominee said last month. Democrats can “have [an abortion] in the seventh, eighth, ninth month, and they can kill the baby,” he said in another interview, adding that in some states “they can kill the baby after the baby is born.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said this week that “there are late-term abortions and every single Democrat supported it.” (“Late-term abortion” is a popular right-wing talking point, but HuffPost is not using it because it’s medically inaccurate.) The belief that pregnant people use abortion like birth control is a well-worn boogeyman that the anti-choice movement has peddled for decades. Though rife with misinformation, the political strategy has been extremely successful, creating cultural stigma so deep around abortions later in pregnancy that many Democrats, including President Joe Biden, and even some pro-choice advocates, are uncomfortable discussing it.

But people do get abortions later in pregnancy — a phrase that generally reflects abortions at or after 21 weeks. Some are women with wanted pregnancies who get a fatal fetal diagnosis. Others are young people who don’t realize they’re pregnant or don’t have a safe way to get an abortion right away. Still, others experience something catastrophic and life-changing later in pregnancy — a partner becoming violent, their home burning down, a job loss — that will make it nearly impossible to safely raise a child. There’s also an increasing number of people pushed further into pregnancy because they experience barriers to care early on: their home state banned abortion forcing them to travel, or their immigration status makes it dangerous for them to seek health care, or they need to save up for the procedure because it’s not covered by insurance.

No one is getting an abortion in the second or third trimester because they woke up one day, months into being pregnant, and decided they didn’t want to be pregnant anymore. But the politically manufactured shame around later abortion care runs so deep that many Democrats believe it too, in part because of the power of these lies. Biden has centered his reelection campaign around restoring Roe v. Wade, and advocates are building policy around it too, protecting abortion care until viability or around 24 weeks — effectively ignoring those who will need care later in pregnancy.

“One of the mistakes we’ve made as a movement is to not talk about later care,” said Dr. Diane Horvath, an OB-GYN and abortion provider at Partners In Abortion Care, an abortion clinic in Maryland where 90% of her patients receive care in the second and third trimesters. “I think we thought we were protecting ourselves by being quiet about it,” she said. “But when you leave gaps in the narrative … anti-abortion folks have always been very happy to fill them in with things that are scary and incorrect, and really debase people who have abortions and debase people who provide them.” Most abortions do happen in the first trimester: Almost 93% of abortions reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2020 were done before the 13th week. Nearly 99% took place by the end of the 20th week. Somewhere around 1% of abortions occur at 21 weeks or later, and the subset of abortions in the third trimester (around 26 weeks) is even smaller.

[...]

Even under the best of circumstances, with a lot of privilege and resources, getting an abortion in the third trimester when Roe was still intact was extremely difficult. “The whole time we’re asking ourselves, ‘What would we have done if any of these pieces were not in place? What if we couldn’t have accessed that money quickly? What if we didn’t have IDs that allowed us to get on a plane? What if we didn’t read and speak English?’” recalled Christensen, who along with her husband founded the abortion strategy and advocacy group Patient Forward.

In 2020, 9% of people who accessed abortions had to travel out of their home state to receive care, according to The Guttmacher Institute. Three years later, after the Dobbs decision that repealed Roe, that number has doubled with around 20% of patients seeking care across state lines. (That number does not account for the increase in medication abortion by mail, a common access point for pregnant people in the first trimester post-Roe.) Horvath and Morgan Nuzzo, a certified nurse midwife, opened Partners in Abortion Care shortly after the Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade in the summer of 2022. The two met working at a Planned Parenthood clinic, but didn’t become close until Nuzzo was pregnant with her first child, and Horvath offered some hand-me-down baby clothes from her kids. Partners in Abortion Care in College Park, Maryland, is one of a small handful in the country that offer all-trimester abortion care. During the first year the clinic was opened, they saw patients from 40 different states and three countries.

Their clinic sees about 10 to 15 patients a week ― nearly all of whom are getting abortions after 20 weeks. The clinic caps the number of patients they see weekly because later care takes more time. Unlike early care, which can often be done using abortion pills, abortions in the second and third trimester are more complex. An abortion between 20 and 26 weeks is typically a two-day procedure, and past 26 weeks is a three-day procedure.

HuffPost explores the stigma of those who get an abortion post-fetal viability and how anti-abortion propaganda (such as falsely calling post-fetal viability abortions "late term abortions") plays a role in creating such stigmas.

Those who choose abortion in the later half of the 2nd or the 3rd trimester do so because of extenuating circumstances.

Post-fetal viability = anywhere after 21-25 weeks in gestational age.