#tn politics

[moontyger]

Since Roe was overturned, doctors have attested that language around medical exceptions to abortion bans is vague and confusing. Many clinicians have reported that they do not feel safe providing an abortion — even if it is the correct and appropriate form of care — until the patient’s condition has progressed to the point where they could die imminently. 

“I don’t know anybody that would feel comfortable treating a pregnant patient with cancer because I don’t feel like they’re nearly dead enough,” Zahedi-Spung said. “The threshold that I am holding in order to provide abortion care is basically almost dead to try to avoid being arrested and jailed.”

In one Ohio case, described in an affidavit by Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Medical Director Sharon Liner, a 25-year-old woman with cancer was already undergoing chemotherapy before she learned she was pregnant. When she discovered her pregnancy, doctors told her she was unable to continue receiving her cancer treatment while pregnant. And at eight weeks pregnant, she could not legally obtain an abortion in Ohio.

The woman’s doctor, Liner said in the affidavit, did not feel comfortable providing paperwork indicating that she medically qualified for an abortion, like many physicians who are nervous about the hefty criminal penalties possible if one is found to have provided an abortion. The woman had to travel out of state to terminate her pregnancy. Only upon returning could she continue her delayed chemotherapy.

“The past two months have been horrendous for our patients,” Liner said in the affidavit.

An employee at the Women’s Med Center of Dayton described a similar case. A 37-year-old woman came for an abortion June 27 — three days after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe. The patient had stage three melanoma and had been told she needed an abortion before she could continue receiving cancer treatment, per a submitted affidavit by Aeran Trick, operations manager at the clinic. 

Because her pregnancy was past six weeks, the woman could not receive an abortion in Ohio.

“Upon learning that she would need to travel out of state to have her abortion, the patient broke down and cried inconsolably, despite the attempts of multiple staff, including myself, to comfort her,” Trick said in the affidavit. 

Research shows that women are more likely to seek health care when they become pregnant. That means patients may not even learn they have cancer until they come in for their first prenatal visit.

Those are often emotionally fraught conversations, Zahedi-Spung said, particularly for patients who intended to become pregnant and did not know about their cancer. If the disease is still in its early stages, some may attempt to surgically remove it, then wait for the pregnancy to reach its second trimester. If needed, they can begin chemotherapy at that point, hoping that the cancer has not progressed too far in the meanwhile. 

But others, particularly those whose cancer is already more advanced, may need to get an abortion, begin chemotherapy and then try to become pregnant after, once they have completed treatment. There are even further complications there since chemotherapy can damage someone’s fertility. 

In those cases, telling patients that they cannot receive an abortion in state becomes even more difficult. 

[mandy-malady]

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[wormsdyke]

god sorry for bringing this up again but its such a batshit time to be in tennessee. our state gov is so, incredibly, embarrassingly terrible right now and there's a lot of talk about how bad this will make our state look. i hope it does. i hope people talk about how poor a job the tn state gov is doing and ridicule it and i hope it shocks some sense into them. i hope Rep. Justin Jones and Rep. Justin Pearson get all the support they deserve. I hope Rep. Gloria Johnson continues her duty to use her privilege and amplify their voices first. I hope nashville receives some comfort that someone is standing up for them after they lost kids to gun violence. i hope this is a catalyst for some devastatingly necessary change.

[joannestorm]

I don't know why I didn't think about posting about this before. Probably because it's such a local issue...

My county has always been Republican. In the last few years, it has been taken over by ultra conservative Republicans. They call themselves the Sumner County Constitutional Republicans (SCCR). They took over the Library Board and wrote a new collections policy that is as salacious as the things they want to protect children from. They tried to take over the school board and the county had record turnouts in the Primaries to vote for the other Republicans. (There were very few Dems running for school board. People chose to vote in the Republican Primary to keep the SCCR out. Not a single one was elected.)

I've looked at their FB page and it is full of Trump is Our Savior and the Dems Weaponized Weather BS.

This is the shit that is going down because of them. You just have to read the news article because it is too wild to explain.

Millersville, TN.

Seriously, VOTE!!! I keep saying this,but even if you don't think you can influence the national outcome, you can totally influence local politics. Don't let your county be taken over by conspiracy theorists.

[gaasubap]

With 19 candidates on the Memphis mayoral ballot, this is a nightmare.

Van Turner is a bigger name who's helped with taking down the confederate statues and works with the NAACP.

But Brandy is the furthest left leaning candidate.

They are the only two I'm considering voting for atm.

Vote October 5th

[superhoeva]

slotkin… girl…

[mandy-malady]

Oh my heart 💔

Kills me that we’ve failed our children

[shipperwolf1]

JUSTIN PEARSON REINSTATED

JUSTIN JONES REINSTATED!

[deadman-is-a-moron]

Okay my pity party is OVER. I will get my Education degree and I will outlive trump because he may be a hateful evil piece of human waste but im a bigger hater than him on any given day.

May this year be filled with death threats for politicians and may the supreme court burn in hell. I want none of them to feel safe and I want them to fear for their lives.

[supersoftly]

Sadly it's true. Google "Police-reported crime in rural and urban areas in the Canadian provinces, 2021" on Statistics Canada. One quote: "The Crime Severity Index (CSI), which measures the volume and the seriousness of crimes, was 33% higher in rural areas (91.9) than in urban areas (69.3). The gap was even greater for the Violent CSI." Again sorry if I'm being autistic about it. I believe your experiences are real, but I tend to go by studies instead of personal experiences and anecdotes.

Dude, key part of the article you glazed over:

(x)

[creaking-skull]

I think lucanis wanted to be teia and viagos third at a point when they weren’t even sleeping together they just had their usual insane UST

[petrichorium]

Hi idk if I’m back from hiatus yet but Vic worked me up on discord so friendly reminder that feminism is not about a woman’s choice but is a radical political movement fighting for the equal rights of half the world’s population. There is no widespread systemic effort to stop women from being feminine or relying on a man or having children, it’s literally the exact fucking opposite of that. Those have ALWAYS been the default for women and you’re fucking blind if u think that has changed at all in modern media depictions.

I’m tired of coddling women who believe the “choice” to do any of those things can be made in a vacuum. There is no such thing as choice when we live in a patriarchal society. Everything we do or enjoy is impacted by the societal pressures placed on us from the moment we are born. That doesn’t mean joy can’t be found in such things, or that even if it were a truly equal world some women wouldn’t make those choices, but we AREN’T in a world without those expectations. We simply aren’t.

It will never be a feminist choice to adhere to societal expectations. If you truly “enjoyed” those things as you claim you do, why are you so defensive? It’s impossible for every decision one makes to be a step in the march for societal change. Just fucking accept that having kids or wearing makeup will not be one.

[itsbansheebitch]

Friendly reminder to all my friends and enemies with asthma:

I grew up the South and was gifted the ✨Bootstraps Mentality✨ for Christmas so I'll have you know that there is NO and I mean NO shame in using your inhaler. I was diagnosed less than a year ago and I struggle with "asking for help" even from a prescribed medical device. I almost collapsed today (I'm all good now) partly because I didn't use my inhaler and take a breather.

USE YOUR DAMN INHALER

[personal-blog243]

Why aren’t the other democratic candidates on my primary ballot??

(For the record this a screenshot of a SAMPLE ballot that is available to see on the GoVoteTN app, not an actual pic of a ballot). But seriously I know for a fact that there are 2 other democratic candidates who are still in the presidential race as of today. Why is ONLY Joe Biden on these online sample ballots for the democratic primary in my state???

The 2 other candidates are named Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson, and I’m sure they are far from perfect but are at least younger than Joe Biden and probably much better and they deserve attention!!! These primaries are Bullshit!

My state primary is on March 5th and it looks like I might have to write in Marianne Williamson or something? I hope this gets fixed. Do people in other states have accurate sample ballots???

[icharchivist]

Is it time to break out the conspiracy board?

my natural behavior

[drbtinglecannon]

Just doing a last minute reminder to fellow usamericans to file your taxes before April 17th 2024, with a high recommendation you use the IRS free filing or one of the affiliate programs they have if you make less than 79k a year (because the more people use it the better, fuck Inuit TurboTax & H&R Block)

You will need to make an ID.me account which isn't really any more difficult than making any other login (you will need your SSN tho), but the filing itself was so simple it took me no time at all and was way faster than using TurboTax because the IRS site doesn't waste a bunch of time doing needless animations to "show your progress" while filing

I filed my taxes a week ago and I've already gotten both my federal and state returns direct deposited. I've never gotten my returns so quickly, it has never been so easy to file, and if people continue to use this service from the IRS it'll only get better.

Also important things to remember with tax season! The IRS will never call you with an automated response about your taxes, those are scam calls just ignore them, and if you do make a mistake while filing don't worry too much because the IRS will just quietly fix your return and either mail you the check/bill or direct deposit it. Happy filing! You got this!