#kate cox

[liberalsarecool]

The War on Women is a war on all women. Don't let the media cover one story and not another.

Amplify the voices of the unheard.

[mysharona1987]

[uboat53]

A woman with two children gets pregnant. She wants another child. Unfortunately, during pre-natal checks, it's discovered that this pregnancy has Trisomy 18, a rare condition which is nearly always fatal. Even in the rare cases where it is not fatal, it can cause severe pregnancy complications and the child that results will require full time care for however long they live.

This woman decided, in consultation with her doctors, that she would prefer not to go through a pregnancy whose overwhelmingly likely result is simply a dead fetus or infant and even whose ideal outcome would result in a substantially reduced ability to parent her other children. Moreover, she still wants another child and does not wish to risk the possible damage to her body and fertility that may come as a result. For this reason she chose to abort the pregnancy.

I think most of us, even a large number of those who consider themselves pro-life, can accept this result. It's not the ideal circumstance any of us would prefer, but the decision is reasonable given the situation.

Unfortunately, this woman lives in Texas and Texas has taken a hard line on its abortion ban, arguing that abortion can only be performed in case of immediate threat to the life of the mother. This position has been taken both by the Attorney General and the Supreme Court of the state, meaning that this is the way the law will be enforced.

Many people who celebrated the end of Roe v. Wade tried to say that this type of situation would never come to pass, that their abortion bans would always be enacted and enforced with an eye toward mercy and care for women. It's been about a year and a half since Dobbs and it's become increasingly clear that this is not the case.

Perhaps there are legal guardrails that should be put around the procedure of abortion, I'm certainly open to the possibility and discussion. But what I think is clear at this point is that the type of people who push for blanket bans on the procedure cannot be trusted to enforce them in any way that is consistent with how the majority of Americans view compassion, mercy, and care for women and families, not to mention medical science. Anyone who continues to argue otherwise is lying to try to get you to enact their extreme agenda.

[captainxtra]

Texas is ran by ghouls.

The day Texas turns blue will be one for the history books...

[odinsblog]

Life under Christofascist Republicans… so far

[cimerran-714]

"It's a good thing that Roe was overturned. It should be up to the states to decide."

No, it isn't. It should never be. The states cannot have a right to decide to kill people; overturning it was the first step. We would not wait until it is completely illegal except for, of course, life-threat situations.

[soundlessdragon]

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[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day:

History is about to repeat itself. In the 1970s, women entered the workforce in record numbers—by the end of the 90s, their labor participation rate had gone from 40% to over 60%. But women’s progress never goes unpunished in America, so we were treated to a massive cultural backlash in return: Articles declaring that working women of a certain age were more likely to be killed by a terrorist than find a husband, myths that feminism made women miserable, and a full-blown moral panic over daycare. (They weren’t just called dangerous, but perhaps even fronts for Satanic child abuse dens. I wish I was kidding.) At the heart of it all, though, was the ‘mommy wars’—a cultural wedge driven in between women who worked in the public sphere and those who stayed home. The idea was to diminish the very real policy issues women faced—like the lack of parental leave and affordable child care—and frame them instead as personal issues. Catfighting, even.

Now, on the precipice of another Donald Trump presidency and halfway through the country’s third year without Roe, new ‘mommy wars’ are about to drop. But they won’t be about whether mothers work outside the home, breastfeed or formula feed, or whether or not moms vaccinate their kids. Instead, we’re about to see women pitted against each other over abortion—specifically, those who end nonviable or medically fraught pregnancies, and those who choose to carry to term.

I’m dreading the passive aggressive Instagram comments and TikTok battles, but can see them clearly already: Conservative women sharing stories of refusing abortions in spite of fatal or devastating fetal diagnoses, all of them steeped in the language of mommy martyrdom. We’ll see social media captions insisting motherhood is about sacrifice, and columns explaining that risking their mental and physical health—or even their lives—is simply what good mothers do. The not-so-veiled implication, of course, is that those who decide to end their doomed pregnancies are selfish—unwilling to put in the requisite suffering that ‘good’ mothers take on happily.

Like the ‘mommy wars’ before it, this deliberately-stoked discord serves a purpose: distracting from conservatives’ dangerous and unpopular abortion bans. What better way to deflect than by once again turning a serious public policy and health issue into a competition over who’s a good mother? Valorizing women who carry doomed pregnancies also lets Republicans reframe their cruel laws as a good thing. They’re not forcing women into suffering—they’re giving them the chance to be the ultimate mothers! Women who keep doomed pregnancies get something in return, too: permission to judge those who don’t make the same choice.

Republicans know their laws mean more women—whether by choice, force, or circumstance—will carry nonviable pregnancies and give birth to seriously- or fatally-ill newborns. These women will need somewhere to put their understandable anger and disappointment; better for Republicans that it’s at the feet of other women. That illusion of moral superiority gives their pain much-needed meaning: They’re the good mothers who did the right thing—not like those ‘bad’ women who refuse to righteously suffer. We caught a glimpse of what this ‘mommy war’ judgement looks like when Kate Cox’s story went viral. Twenty weeks into her pregnancy, the Texas mother found out that her fetus had a fatal abnormality and that her pregnancy was endangering her fertility, health and life. Still, the state denied her care. While the primary response from Americans was outrage on Cox’s behalf, many conservatives had a different reaction: They accused Cox—a woman desperate to protect her life and spare her fetus unnecessary pain—of trying to “kill” her “disabled child.”

[...]

After all, anti-abortion lawmakers and activists have been at their weakest when women like Cox—or Kaitlyn Joshua and Amanda Zurawski—have shared their stories and driven public outrage. These are women who draw attention to the horrific real-life consequences of abortion bans, while also upending conservatives’ long-standing lie that women seek abortions out of ‘convenience.’ (Remembering, of course, that what they mean by ‘convenience’ are women who have the nerve to want to go to college, pay their bills, take care of existing children or leave a bad relationship.)

Republicans can’t publicly call out women like Cox, Joshua or Zurwaski without seeming cruel. But with a new mommy war in their back pocket, anti-abortion women can do their dirty work for them—dismissing powerful post-Roe horror stories as nothing more than the gripes of bad mothers. Unfortunately, there’s never been a better time for conservatives to make all of this happen. In fact, they’ve already laid the cultural groundwork. If you have any sort of social media account, chances are you’ve seen a video explaining the supposed dangers of hormonal birth control, or come across the account of some wildly popular ‘tradwife’ who makes cereal and bubblegum from scratch. None of that is by accident. I warned in a 2022 column about the rise of social media romanticizing 1950s housewives—or, more accurately, the sanitized depictions of them.

[...] In fact, just in November, Hannah Neeleman—one of the country’s most popular ‘tradwives,’ with tens of millions of followers—graced the cover of Evie, an anti-contraception propaganda machine masquerading as a magazine. This comes at the same time that anti-abortion organizations are adopting feminist-sounding rhetoric to soften their misogyny, and as what it means to be a ‘natural’ mother gets more and more alarming. The rise of vaccine skeptics, raw milk enthusiasts, ‘natural’ birth control proponents, and other right-wing pipeline issues have fully prepped the country to accept the idea that a good mother is one who accepts a pregnancy regardless of how dangerous, painful or viable it is. American culture has always needed women to believe that motherhood is about sacrifice and overwhelm. Now, with abortion bans, that bit of propaganda has gotten even more dangerous—deadly, even. After all, conservatives know that their laws won’t just force women to suffer, but to die. That’s why it’s so vital that we’re pushing back—refusing to valorize one woman’s choices over another’s, supporting laws that allow families to make decisions that are best for them, and pointing out this kind of conservative trickery whenever we see it. After all, you can’t have a ‘mommy war’ if there are no mommies left to fight it.

Jessica Valenti wrote a solid piece in Abortion, Every Day about the mommy wars over abortion ginned up by anti-abortion activists between those who end nonviable or medically fraught pregnancies and those who choose to carry to term.

[filosofablogger]

A Brief Update

Earlier today I wrote about Kate Cox and her struggle to obtain an abortion despite the fact that the fetus she carries is not viable and her very life is in danger.  I wrote that late last night, and when I woke this morning, it was to this headline in the New York Times … Texas Supreme Court Temporarily Halts Court-Approved Abortion   The court, responding to an appeal from Attorney General Ken…

[rickmctumbleface]

[liberalsarecool]

Republicans are 24/7 bad faith.

[mysharona1987]

[tomorrowusa]

A reminder that Republicans reserve the right to police reproductive systems.

A Texas woman who had sought a legal medical exemption for an abortion has left the state after the Texas Supreme Court paused a lower court decision that would allow her to have the procedure, lawyers for the Center for Reproductive Rights said Monday.  State District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble last week had ruled that Kate Cox, a 31-year-old mother of two from Dallas, could terminate her pregnancy. According to court documents, Cox's doctors told her her baby suffered from the chromosomal disorder trisomy 18, which usually results in either stillbirth or an early death of an infant.  As of the court filing last week, Cox was 20 weeks pregnant. According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, which brought the lawsuit, Cox left the state because she "couldn't wait any longer" to get the procedure. "Her health is on the line," said Center for Reproductive Rights CEO Nancy Northup. "She's been in and out of the emergency room and she couldn't wait any longer." In response to Gamble's decision, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton warned a Texas medical center that it would face legal consequences if an abortion were performed.  In an unsigned order late Friday, the Texas Supreme Court then temporarily paused Gamble's ruling.  On Monday, after Cox left the state, the state Supreme Court lifted the pause, dismissing it as moot, and overturned the lower court ruling that had granted Cox's request. 

Fortunately Ms. Cox had the option of traveling to another state to have the procedure. A future US Supreme Court packed with MAGA judges could further restrict abortion nationally.

ALL of the current GOP candidates for president would choose anti-abortion judges for the US Supreme Court. And a GOP Senate would confirm them. Remind anybody considering voting for an impotent third-party candidate who has no chance of winning.

[profemina]

Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, 14 states (including Texas) have broadly banned abortion. The Texas law says there are exceptions for a "life-threatening physical condition … or a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function."

Duane believed Kate's case fell under that exception: "Yes, and so did her doctor. The problem is, no one knows what that means. Major bodily function? What about a minor bodily function? Surely fertility would count as a major bodily function. But there's no clarity about this."

In 2021, the year before the bans, there were more than 50,000 abortions performed in Texas. Last year, there were just 40.

The penalties Texas doctors face for performing an abortion are high: fines of at least $100,000, and up to 99 years in prison.

...

In December, when Kate was 20 weeks pregnant, they sued the state of Texas. "We were asking for a court order to say Kate can get an abortion in Texas, and her doctor and her husband would be protected by that court order," Duane said.

The District Court granted their restraining order. But the Texas attorney general sent a letter to doctors and hospitals warning they could still be prosecuted if they helped Kate get an abortion – and he filed an appeal with the State Supreme Court.

Smith asked, "As the Texas Supreme Court is debating this, what are you going through?"

"I mean, I didn't hardly get out of bed – stressed, you know? I had a timeline. I couldn't wait," Kate said.

They decided they had to go out of state. The Coxes had the abortion in New Mexico, and said goodbye to a future they'd already been grieving.

"Her name's Chloe," Kate said.

"Why did you feel it was important to give her a name?" Smith asked.

"I gave her a name because she'll always be my baby," Kate replied. "Her middle name is my grandfather's name, so that she knew who to look for in heaven."

On December 11, while the Coxes were away, the Texas Supreme Court overturned the lower court's ruling.

Duane said the court decided that "essentially, Kate wasn't sick enough. And I think what that makes clear to me, and the fact that the attorney general fought it as hard as he did, is that the exception in Texas doesn't exist at all."

Smith asked Kate what she though when she heard their ruling.

"It was crushing," said Kate. "I was shocked that the state of Texas wanted me to continue a pregnancy where I would have to wait until a baby dies in my belly, or dies at birth, or lives for days, and put my own health at risk, and a future pregnancy at risk."

[odinsblog]

Call me crazy, but I hope someday women have more rights than guns do