#early abortion

[cheerfullycatholic]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Andrew Prokop at Vox:

Former President Donald Trump has lately been trying to distance himself from Project 2025, claiming it was cooked up by the “severe right” and that he doesn’t know anything about it. But it turns out the severe right is coming from inside the house. Kevin Roberts, the self-proclaimed “head” of Project 2025, has a book coming out in September — and the book’s foreword is written by Trump’s vice presidential candidate, J.D. Vance, who lavishly praises its ideas. “Never before has a figure with Roberts’s depth and stature within the American Right tried to articulate a genuinely new future for conservatism,” Vance writes, according to the book’s Amazon page. “We are now all realizing that it’s time to circle the wagons and load the muskets. In the fights that lay ahead, these ideas are an essential weapon.”

What ideas? Like Vance, Roberts is obsessed with the idea that the left controls major American institutions — he lists Ivy League colleges, the FBI, the New York Times, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Department of Education and even the Boy Scouts of America. The book argues that “conservatives need to burn down” these institutions if “we’re to preserve the American way of life.” (Vox has requested a copy of the book, but has not yet received one at the time of this writing.) Obviously, this poses a problem for Trump’s attempts to distance himself from the virally unpopular Project 2025 and its lengthy agenda for what he should do if he wins, which includes proposals to restrict abortion access and centralize executive power in the presidency.

And it’s one more indication that Trump’s pick of Vance might be politically problematic for him. Vance has a fascination with provocative and extreme far-right thinkers, and a history of praising their ideas. He is not a running mate tailored to win over swing voters who are concerned Trump might be too extreme — quite the opposite. The book was written and announced before Vance was chosen as Trump’s running mate. But there’s some indication that people involved had some late second thoughts about it. It was originally announced as “Dawn’s Early Light: Burning Down Washington to Save America,” with a cover image showing a match over the word “Washington.”

More recently, though, the subtitle has been changed to “Taking Back Washington to Save America,” and the match has vanished from the cover.

[...]

Vance agrees quite a bit with Project 2025’s most extreme ideas

Project 2025 contains a multitude of proposals in its 922-page plan, not all of which J.D. Vance necessarily supports. But he’s on record backing ideas similar to those put forth in two of Project 2025’s most controversial issue areas. The first is abortion. Project 2025 lays out a sweeping agenda by which the next president could use federal power to prevent abortions, including using an old law called the Comstock Act to prosecute people who mail abortion pills, and working to prevent women from abortion-banning states from traveling out of state to get abortions.

Vance is on record supporting these ideas. Last year, he signed a letter demanding that the Justice Department prosecute physicians and pharmacists “who break the Federal mail-order abortion laws.” In 2022, he said he was “sympathetic” to the idea that the federal government should stop efforts to help women traveling out of their states to get abortions. That year, he also said: “I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally.” At other points, Vance has struck a different tone. ““We have to accept that people do not want blanket abortion bans,” he said last December. And this month he said he supported a Supreme Court decision that allowed the abortion bill mifepristone to remain available. Here, Vance is trying to align with Trump, who — fearing political blowback — argues he merely wants abortion to be a state issue, despite his long alliance with the religious right. But Vance’s record implies his true agenda might be otherwise.

The second controversial area where Vance is sympatico with Project 2025 is centralizing presidential power over the executive branch. The project lays out various proposals to rein in what conservatives view as an out-of-control “deep state” bureaucracy — mainly, by firing far more career civil servants and installing far more political appointees throughout the government. Vance, as I wrote last week, has backed a maximalist version of this agenda. In 2021, Vance said that in Trump’s second term, Trump should “fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.” The courts would try to stop this, Vance continued, and Trump should then “stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did, and say, ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’”

While Donald Trump is doing his darndest to supposedly run away from the highly unpopular Project 2025, his ticketmate J.D. Vance is making that proposition difficult to impossible.

See Also:

HuffPost: There’s Another Link Between Trump’s Campaign And Project 2025

[muninnhuginn]

The thought that goes into the fake science in dungeon meshi can be something so special actually. Using golems to explain crop rotation and how removing predators from an ecosystem can have knock-on effects. Talking about symbiotic relationships and parasites too! And characters are actually interested in the science so they keep explaining about it. Finally, some exposition I can get behind.

[artbyblastweave]

Got a Worm meta question for you. I'm starting on the early parts of Taylor's warlord era - I'm about to leap into Arc 13 - and the general concept of a ravaged American city being divided up by various supervillain groups is reminding me a lot of that Batman story arc No Man's Land from the late 1990s. Unfortunately my comics knowledge is rudimentary at best, and I haven't been able to any discussion comparing the two stories, so I was wondering if I could pick your brain on the subject. Was it just convergent evolution, or was Wildbow engaging with the Batman story in some way?

I myself have only read about half of No Man's Land- and several years ago to boot- so I've got limited ability to do a direct compare and contrast. No Man's Land is absolutely the sort of status-quo-shattering, history-book-making upset that, within Marvel and DC, nonetheless always inexplicably heals and loses salience until you can barely tell that it's still in continuity. Worm is heavily informed by Wildbow's irritation with that sort of thing, so I think it's totally reasonable to view the warlord era through the lens of "What if No Mans Land had no editorial escape hatch." Alternatively, I think it kind of makes sense to view it through the lens that it's working backwards from the premise of No Man's Land- In what kind of setting would it be plausible for the Federal Government to write off a sufficiently-damaged American City? In what context would the legal infrastructure have been established for that, in what context would that even fall within the Overton Window? What muddies my opinion on this is that the general concept of a ravaged, atmospherically-apocalyptic American city torn up by superpowered gang warfare is something that's kind of just been in the water in superhero comics since the mid-eighties at least, and it was a relatively common thing to see during the Dark Age- they were choice prey for all those overpouched musclemen with their poorly rendered firearms. I'd be surprised if Wildbow wasn't at least aware of No Man's Land, but it's definitely not the only cape book from the late 90s or early oughts where you could pick up that idea from. Ultimately this leaves me unsure if No Man's Land is the specific referent or if it's just part-and-parcel with trying to do an involved, thoughtful take on what cape comics were like at the time.

[2bpoliticallycurious]

An important article written by three primary care physicians (Erika Bliss, Joan Fleischman and Michele Gomez) to dispel the disinformation about abortion that is being spread by anti-abortion groups.

Jewel is a student in her early 20s who lives in Texas. When her doctor confirmed she was pregnant, Jewel felt panicked. She knew it wasn’t the right time for her to have a child, and that abortion was illegal in her state.

Fortunately, Jewel had resources. After doing her research, she packed a bag and flew to New York City, where her sister lives. From there, the two women came to see one of us — Joan Fleischman, a family medicine doctor who has been providing abortions in her small practice in New York City for over 20 years.

Jewel, who asked to be identified by her middle name, told Dr. Fleischman about her experience in Texas. Medical staff members “were trying to push a happy pregnancy, while I was miserable and crying,” she said. Jewel sensed her doctor was afraid to even talk about other options because the doctor feared losing her license.

Dr. Fleischman performed an ultrasound, which dated the pregnancy between five and six weeks. She discussed Jewel’s options and, after confirming that Jewel wanted to end the pregnancy, completed a manual uterine aspiration procedure. This method uses a hand-held device and takes a few minutes to complete in a regular exam room.

Dr. Fleischman then conducted a routine tissue examination. This involves rinsing the tissue with water using a fine sieve. She identified decidual tissue, or uterine lining, as well as a gestational sac, the visible evidence of the pregnancy. At this stage of pregnancy, the embryo is not typically visible to the naked eye.

Afterward, she offered to show Jewel the early pregnancy tissue. Jewel told Dr. Fleischman that it wasn’t what she expected. “I thought you were going to bring in something that was shaped like a little fetus or something, and it was not that at all,” Jewel said.

Primary care clinicians like us who provide early abortions in their practices have long known that the pregnancy tissue we remove does not look like what most people expect. [...] It’s important to us to counter medical misinformation related to early pregnancy because about 80 percent of abortions in the United States occur at nine weeks or earlier. So much of the imagery that people see about abortion comes from abortion opponents who have spent decades spreading misleading fetal imagery to further their cause.

[See more below the cut.]

Last fall, as members of the MYA (My Abortion) Network, a clinician-led organization dedicated to educating people about abortion and expanding early abortion services into primary care settings, we launched a multimedia project to provide accurate information regarding early pregnancy tissue after abortion.

The Guardian published our first photos on Oct. 19; they went viral, appearing in media outlets and getting shared widely on social media.

Many people, even those who support abortion rights, did not believe the photos were accurate. Some insisted we had deliberately removed the embryos before taking the photos. The images weren’t consistent with those often seen in embryological textbooks, magnified on ultrasounds or used in anti-abortion propaganda; these enlarged images are not what you see with the naked eye after an abortion. A Stanford gynecologic pathologist has validated our photos, but many people could not believe the pictures were presented unaltered. [...] But showing these images is vital to counter misinformation, not only for patients but for our colleagues as well. Dr. Jeffrey Levine is a professor of family medicine and director of reproductive and gender health programs at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. [...] “When we examine the tissue after a procedure, everyone is consistently surprised. They expect to see an embryo, fetus or at least some body parts,” he told us, describing the students’ experience as “underwhelmed.”

But our primary daily work, of course, is with patients. And when our patients look at the tissue, it often makes them realize how much guilt or even shame they have internalized from society’s judgment in making this deeply personal decision.

Relief was how Jewel experienced seeing the pregnancy tissue. “I was really scared about all the horror stories and the trauma. The anxiety of coming here was worse than actually going through it,” she told Dr. Fleischman.

In many ways, medical care related to abortion has never been more straightforward. And we know abortion is an important part of primary care and could be widely available in mainstream practice settings — if the Dobbs decision hadn’t suddenly thrust many of our colleagues in states across the country into jeopardy.

Instead, we find ourselves in a country divided by politics rather than by patient need. Ensuring that our patients, colleagues and the general public have clear, objective information about abortion is critical for patients to get the care they deserve.

[grrlscientist]

"When the penalty for aborting after a rape is more severe than the penalty for rape, THAT'S when you know it's a WAR ON WOMEN."

[rosielindy]

[whogirl42]

I found it really interesting how like... 14x01 gave points to both sides of the abortion debate.

On the one hand, it points out the hypocrisy of some pro-lifers who are determined that all babies be born, and then seem to stop caring what happens to the babies once they're here in the world, are perfectly fine with abandoning them to cruel fates.

On the other hand, it makes the claim that even though you might not see something as a baby, you still need to save it, you can't just abort discard it out of fear.

And I just. I actually really love that they didn't do a one-to-one allegory for the abortion thing, as they so easily could have. No one likes being lectured or moralised at. By allowing the complexity the writers made the episode so much better. It both stands on it's own as a unique story, and also prompts nuanced thought about various aspects of what is a very complex and divisive issue.

[cyarskj1899]

Black voters for the next 4 years

[tomorrowusa]

Election Day is Tuesday November 7th.

One of the more high profile contests is the effort to place reproductive freedom into the Ohio Constitution.

If you're in Ohio, be sure to Vote Yes on Issue 1. If you're outside Ohio, send people you know there a friendly reminder to vote in favor of the measure.

Take abortion out of the hands of the gerrymandered GOP-run Ohio legislature!

Ohio is not the only place elections are taking place next week. Go to this site and scroll down slightly to here...

A strong Yes vote on Issue 1 may encourage further ballot initiatives in Ohio such as one to end gerrymandering.

There is no such thing as an unimportant election. Even school board elections have an impact on things like book banning and suppression of accurate history.

Democracy is not a spectator sport. 🇺🇸 ☒ 🗳

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

Cradle Of Filth - Lord Abortion

[hanzajesthanza]

also regis swearing at stygga is so meaningful to me because he swore over milva’s dead body and also in front of angoulême (and assumedly cahir too)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[prolibytherium]

aside from the obvious Frank&Charlie, Charlie and Dennis really do have the most (RELATIVELY SPEAKING) weirdly sweet and sincere relationship of the group. I AM including the scene where Charlie throttles the shit out of him on a therapist's couch when I say this

[saint-batrick]

my friend reads me for filth on a regular basis and is one of the funniest fucking people i know.

[musical-chick-13]

One of the worst and most counter-productive things this site has tried to do is claim that just Sharing A Marginalization With Someone means that the two of you have a wealth of things in common and are Automatically Aligned On Most Issues when that is NOT THE CASE. VERY CATEGORICALLY NOT THE CASE.

[infectiouspiss]

schools are wild they’ll sit a bunch of kids down and make them watch some graphic video and then send you home like ‘byeeeee!’ meanwhile im five and have just learned about mortality in the worst way