This Is Why We Vote: Women Are Not Yet Full Citizens
[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]
Someone I’ve looked up to and followed in social media wrote yesterday, “Don’t Vote.”
That earned an immediate muting and unfollowing from me. No fucking way.
I’m not going to identify them. I don’t even care what detailed explanation they offered for their statement.
Do not discourage people from participation in democracy when that democracy is fighting for its life.
More importantly, do not discourage citizens from voting when their own human rights are being trampled on.
Yesterday was particularly egregious for women, and one of the worst days to tell women not to vote.
Get your asses to the polls. Take friends and family with you. Vote like your life depends on it because it fucking well does.
~ ~ ~
You’ve probably seen news stories about Texas resident Kate Cox and her rather desperate effort to obtain an abortion. You’ve probably seen stories leading up to this week about the legal volleys between her and the state of Texas — no she can’t, yes she can, no she can’t — a state which outlawed abortions in nearly all cases.
What you haven’t seen much discussion about is the reason why she’s been seeking an abortion.
The fetus she is carrying has an autosomal chromosomal disorder which is fatal – trisomy 18, otherwise known as Edwards syndrome.
Read about it:
Most Edwards syndrome cases are diagnosed prenatally, based on antenatal screening with maternal age, maternal serum marker, or by ultrasound findings during the second trimester. Antenatally, Edwards syndrome can reveal intrauterine growth restriction, polyhydramnios, agenesis of the corpus callosum, choroid plexus cyst, nuchal thickening, brachycephaly, clenched hands with overriding index fingers, cardiac defects, omphalocele, and single umbilical artery.[8] Edwards syndrome has a high risk of fetal loss and stillbirth.
Postnatally, Edwards syndrome is characterized by a cluster of phenotypes, as summarized below.
1. Neurologic findings
◦ Neonatal hypotonia followed by hypertonia
◦ Apnea
◦ Seizures
◦ Poor sucking
◦ Delayed psychomotor development and mental retardation2. Craniofacial findings [9]
◦ Skull: Microcephaly, bitemporal narrowing, and prominent occiput.
◦ Face: Triangular and asymmetric face with facial paralysis
◦ Eyes: Microphthalmia, hypertelorism, epicanthus, short palpebral fissures, coloboma of iris, cataract, corneal clouding, hypoplastic supraorbital ridge, upward or downward slanting palpebral fissures, and abnormal retinal pigmentation.
◦ Nose: Prominent nasal bridge with hypoplastic nasal root, upturned nares, and choanal atresia.
◦ Oral cavity: Micro-retrognathia, microstomia, narrow arched palate, cleft lip, and cleft palate.
◦ Ears: Microtia, preauricular appendages, low-set or retroverted ears, and dysplastic ears.3. Skeletal [10]
◦ Severe growth retardation
◦ Short neck
◦ Short sternum
◦ Broad chest, with or without widely spaced small nipples.
◦ Incomplete ossification of the clavicle
◦ Hemivertebrae or fused vertebrae, scoliosis
◦ Pectus excavatum
◦ Narrow pelvis and limitation of the hip abduction
◦ Hip dislocation
◦ Arthrogryposis,
◦ Clenched hands with overriding fingers, camptodactyly, syndactyly, single palmar crease and clinodactyly of the fifth fingers, radial or thumb hypoplasia, and hypoplastic nails
◦ Rocker-bottom feet with the prominent calcaneus, talipes equinovarus, dorsiflexed great toes4. Cardiovascular
◦ Cardiac defects are found in 90% of Edwards syndrome patients.
◦ Ventricular or atrial septal defect, Patent ductus arteriosus, tetralogy of Fallot, overriding of the aorta, coarctation of the aorta, and hypoplastic left heart syndrome
◦ Polyvalvular heart disease (involving two or more valves; the most common aortic and pulmonary valve5. Pulmonary
◦ Pulmonary hypoplasia
◦ Tracheobronchomalacia, laryngomalacia
◦ Obstructive and central apnea
◦ Early-onset pulmonary hypertension6. Gastrointestinal:
◦ Omphalocele
◦ Esophageal atresia with Tracheoesophageal fistula
◦ Pyloric stenosis
◦ Ileal atresia
◦ Malrotation
◦ Meckel diverticulum
◦ Diastasis recti
◦ Umbilical hernia7. Genitourinary
◦ Cryptorchidism, Hypospadias, micropenis,
◦ Clitoral hypertrophy, hypoplasia of the labia majora, ovarian dysgenesis, and bifid uterus
◦ Horseshoe kidney, renal agenesis, hydronephrosis8. Central nervous system malformations (occur in 30% of cases)
◦ Cerebellar hypoplasia,
◦ Meningoencephalocele, anencephaly
◦ Hydrocephalus
◦ Holoprosencephaly
◦ Arnold-Chiari malformation
◦ Hypoplasia of the corpus callosum
source: Edwards Syndrome
Read more elsewhere into this understanding there are people who will try to persuade you that the extremely small percentage of children born with trisomy 18 will live as long as a year is worth gambling with the mother’s life, or that the quality of life for these severely challenged infants is worth all the torture they will receive in their short lives.
Cox has been in the emergency room several times during this pregnancy. She could have any number of problems like high blood pressure or have been experiencing symptoms indicating miscarriage might be imminent. The reasons why aren’t reported in the media; it’s private personal medical data the media can’t obtain without permission from the patient.
But for some reason the state of Texas – let’s be frank, the bloody Texas GOP – thinks that everything about this pregnancy is its business.
To that end they believe it’s their business Cox must be forced to give birth to a child which will likely suffer a miserable death after all manner of medical interventions.
The Texas GOP at multiple levels of the state’s government, from that corrupt scumbucket AG Ken Paxton to members of the state’s supreme court, believe they know best about this pregnancy.
Never mind the mother and her doctors may already know from testing this fetus has gross deficits incompatible with life outside the womb beyond what a blood test may reveal.
Cox’s plight has fallen under intense public scrutiny while law enforcement and the state judiciary have eaten up days, weeks, months debating the fate of this woman and her pregnancy – all adding to her stress, further hurting the fetus she carries.
This is what the GOP is good at: overt cruelty, without any consideration for the persons it is tormenting as it debates what should never be in their purview.
This is the death panel the GOP wanted Americans to be afraid would be implemented with the Affordable Care Act – except it’s not insurers or hospitals or doctors on this panel.
The death panel is majority white Christian Republican men who will never know what it is to face the body horror of carrying a fetus which isn’t viable, or a fetus which wasn’t wanted, or a pregnancy which poses a mortal threat to the mother.
Welcome to Gilead. Enjoy this enactment of The Handmaid’s Tale where we now wait for the mother to be further persecuted because she took control of her life and left Texas to seek care away from the reach of the Texas GOP death panel.
~ ~ ~
Meanwhile, Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed the last bill yesterday which finalized the codification of the state’s Reproductive Health Act. Voters demanded reproductive rights in November 2022 when they passed the Proposal 3 ballot initiative. The proposal’s passage assured reproductive rights became part of the state’s constitution, which in turned required the repeal of a 91-year-old law banning abortion along with other legislation to ensure access to reproductive health care.
Whitmer is a Democrat; the state legislature has been led by Democrats this term.
This was intensely personal for Whitmer, who had pleaded with her fellow state legislators a decade ago not to pass restrictions on health care insurance for reproductive health. She had been raped in college and shared that personal trauma in order to make her point – but to no avail given the MIGOP led the state’s legislature at the time. Whitmer understands all too well what the stakes were and are with regard to reproductive rights.
Had Kate Cox lived in Michigan, she would not have been named publicly, not been in the news, simply have gone about seeking necessary health care so that she could heal and take care of her family.
The same goes for the 10-year-old Ohio girl who was raped and left Ohio to seek an abortion in Indiana. The same for the Indiana doctor who treated her so that she could return to being a little girl again. Both of them would not have been subjected to the cruelty media exposure brings, nor the harassment of mostly white GOP men using them to stump for votes from anti-abortion voters.
No woman or health care provider in the U.S. should live in fear the way they do in Texas, Ohio, Indiana, and other states which have banned abortion and reproductive health care to the point that persons endowed with uteruses and their health care providers are denied their fundamental rights of personal autonomy and privacy.
They are denied the right to be secure in their persons against unreasonable searches and seizures, unlike those who never had a uterus and identify as men.
Women are not permitted their full right of citizenship everywhere in this country.
This is why we fucking vote, every election, every race, up and down the ticket.
~ ~ ~
Am I hot about this? Yes, yes I am. I have an adult daughter of childbearing age and her career is now shaped by where she can safely travel and live. We’ve had to have unreasonable, unfair discussions about what to do if she travels to a state with aggressive anti-abortion laws – how will she obtain help, who will provide it, how will she securely notify her spouse and/or parents where she is and what help she needs, and who is at risk of legal liability if they help her.
I have an adult son who doesn’t face those same challenges, simply because he doesn’t have a uterus.
However once he enters a serious relationship with a woman of childbearing age, he’ll have to consider similar issues: should he accept a job where his girlfriend/wife will be at risk if she becomes pregnant?
These should not be issues workers from their teens to their early fifties have to worry about. They should free to look at jobs anywhere, evaluate the work and employer on their own merits, not have to turn down jobs because they don’t have the same rights across the country.
Banning access to reproductive health care isn’t hurting just persons of childbearing age by denying them personal freedom – it’s hurting all of us because it’s a restriction on commerce. The best people for a job may not be going to Texas because they don’t want to be tortured like Kate Cox has been.
But again, this is why we fucking vote, every election, every race, up and down the ticket.
You may dislike a two-party system. Point taken. But do not tell me the two parties are the same because one of the two parties doesn’t believe women are entitled to the same rights as men.
~ ~ ~
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Thank you.
Thank you.
And everyone vote like trump and his minions going to jail depends on it. And then some.
“Am I hot about this? Yes, yes I am.”
Thank you for your heat on this, Rayne.
Amen.
As a Party, as a group who willingly and openly supports and promotes their evident policies, Republicans everywhere, in all levels of government, are actively and intentionally denying Americans their rights.
If anyone still insists they are still a member of the Republican Party, that person no longer has any justification to be granted a position of public trust.
Don’t just vote, vote to remove every single Republican from our government.
Those last five words are heard as coming from a foreign language to Texas. For all the holy handwringing and performative legal tut-tutting (gosh, she didn’t need a court order; all she needed was a doctor to say she met the requirements), the denial of medical care to Cox also put her two existing children in danger of losing their mother.
I’ve sat with women who have miscarried, women who received an abortion, women who delivered a stillborn fetus, and women whose baby died shortly after birth. I’ve sat with their husbands, partners, parents, children, siblings, and extended family members. None of this is easy, but access to appropriate medical advice and being able to make appropriate personal choices is a great first step to being able to deal with things like this. On the other hand, making necessary medical care damn near impossible to obtain is beyond gruesome.
The folks who conceived of laws like this suffered from two toxic things earlier in their lives: (1) bad sex education, that left them with the mistaken idea that every sperm meets an egg, every fertilized egg implants in the uterus, and every one of these develops perfectly with no problems along the way until a happy laughing baby pops out in 9 months; and (2) bad theological education, that taught them that women are to be the property of men because they are incapable of even contributing to the discussion of difficult decisions facing the family and community. Put these two stupid ideas together, and you get the Texas Legislature and High Priest Ken Paxton.
It isn’t just the politicians who are bone ignorant. Judging by twitter comments, an enormous number of Americans don’t understand anything about human reproduction, but think they’re entitled to weigh in on these horrifying cases, including that of Cox. The Texas law was amended recently to permit abortions in a couple of disaster cases,including ectopic pregnancies, but this decision from the TX Supremes and the threats from the indicted AG call that into question.
As Rayne explains the only safe solution for women contemplating child-bearing and their partners is to get the hell out of those sicko states.
If women graduating from college look around and realize that laws like these are dealbreakers as they decide where to seek that first job, it won’t take long before recruiters realize that they have a problem on their hands. This is doubly so when you are looking at professions where women are in high demand (like engineering),
They may even be seeing it already with respect to where women seek internships and co-ops.
My daughter’s an engineer. She’s already had to put up with enough systemic and institutional bias against her as a woman. These bullshit anti-abortion laws legitimize employers and educational institutions’ continued misogyny because they can offer jobs to women knowing they’re much less likely to be accepted or less likely to be obligated to hire women, creating another new approach to discrimination.
add to this the number of engineering / consultancy companies which are relocating to Texas due to a more attractive corporate tax rates etc. (I used to work at one that relocated to Dallas) This further restricts the ability for women to achieving appointments into the C-Suite level roles as they typically come with the requirement to move to Company HQ.
Good point. I can see A&E firms going back to the 1950s (heck, even the 1990s in the south — my own experience) where firms are the good ‘ol boys, complete cesspools of misogynists. These firms will think they are “off the hook” for hiring women.
Not only graduates looking for jobs, but also high school students selecting colleges and universities.
And people deciding where to vacation or to retire. I hate the cold but would rather freeze than set foot in Florida or any other southern state.
Texas used to be not bad. But that was before the TX GOP took over. (My rep in the state leg was Pete Laney, who was at the time Speaker of the House. He was one who flew to Oklahoma in that coup by Craddick.)
Hard to believe that Texas delivered Barbra Jordan, Bill Moyers and LBJ! A completely different world.
And a few more: Ralph Yarborough U S Senate 1958-1966. The only southern senator to vote for civil rights and voting rights bills. Not reelected after that. Also congressman Bob Eckhardt who was also helped found the Texas Observer later edited by Molly Ivins.
A-fckin-men.
Well said!
And the responses so far are outstanding, too!
A society that treats women like ms cox and that poor woman in Ohio being threatened with a felony over the circumstances of a miscarriage is a society with deep deep dysfunction. These women along with their families should be receiving support as they grieve for their losses not made to feel criminal over an unviable fetus.
And make no mistake if republicans win the White House and congress they will make abortion illegal every where
This is the kind of horror the GOP now revels in: “Kentucky woman seeking court approval for abortion learned her embryo no longer has cardiac activity.”
Kentucky, like Texas, bans virtually all abortions. The health consequences of not aborting a dead fetus would be catastrophic. The public should not even know about this case; it should be a private matter between her and her doctor. But Republicans make it a cause celebre for votes and money, and because they want women to be brood mares and child and home care providers. To call them Neanderthals would be unfair to Neanderthals.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/12/2211265/-Kentucky-woman-seeking-court-approval-for-abortion-learned-her-embryo-no-longer-has-cardiac-activity
It should also be noted that Kentucky voters soundly defeated an amendment that would have held there to be no right to an abortion in the Commonwealth’s constitution last year.
Unfortunately Kentucky’s elected Supreme Court earlier ducked the issue which will now be heard in this suit filed by this courageous woman.
Here’s good coverage about the group of women in KY contesting the state’s abortion ban:
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-10-09/jewish-women-cite-faith-in-contesting-kentucky-abortion-ban
Thanks, klynn, much appreciated. I’m surprised other faith groups haven’t joined similar efforts in other states.
Here’s a more current article on KY:
https://www.wkms.org/health/2023-05-12/jewish-women-cite-kentuckys-religious-freedom-law-in-contesting-state-abortion-ban
And more states:
https://stljewishlight.org/news/world-news/how-jewish-activists-are-campaigning-for-reproductive-rights-one-year-after-dobbs/
This covers more:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/02/religious-clergy-fighting-for-abortion-rights/
Thank you, Rayne. I’m passing this on to friends who subscribe to the “don’t vote – it only encourages them” view. Honestly, if this case doesn’t make an electoral difference in Texas (and elsewhere), nothing will.
Like other recent survivors of impeachment, Ken Paxton malingers on. Using his office as a delaying shield from criminal proceedings also places him in a similar position to Netanyahu, within a growing class of pernicious political scoundrels…
Since this has been declared an open thread, I’m going to drop a link to a rather interesting article here:
https://inthesetimes.com/article/former-left-right-fascism-capitalism-horseshoe-theory
It’s about the evolution of “horseshoe theory” into “diagonalism”. Co-author of this article is Jeff Sharlet, who I’m familiar with because of his 2008 book about the marriage of Christian fundamentalism into current-day power politics: “The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power”.
A very scary book. Netflix made it into an excellent series: https://www.netflix.com/title/80063867
The Article in In These Times is somewhere between discomforting and terrifying. What’s to be done?
Amen, Rayne.
If a white woman in Texas is not free, then no Texas women are free.
Technically, this breaks the Republic. We can’t hold our 50 states together if a third of them treat reproductive medicine as routine healthcare with some expectations of privacy, and two thirds treat it as a crime. And in a few of those states that have “exceptions” mentioned in their laws, only privileged women who are brave enough and can lawyer-up can ask judges to approve a medical procedure, while putting their name all over the news as one of the many prices they have to pay.
This shatters us. These aren’t laws regulating fireworks or weed sales that vary state to state. These are fundamental individual rights. Really terrible lawyers and judges got us into this mess. And I don’t see a way out, aside from advising everyone not to live in states that criminalize trans and womens medicine.
Breaking the republic is exactly what the GOP wants to do. What a coincidence that Putin wants the same thing — even goading the separatist movements in multiple states including Texas.
ADDER: References —
Putin’s Plot to Get Texas to Secede
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/vladimir-putin-texas-secession-119288/
A leading California secession advocate got funding and direction from Russian intelligence agents, US government alleges
https://www.businessinsider.com/california-secession-movement-was-backed-by-russia-us-alleges-2022-7
What’s Behind Russian Support for World’s Separatist Movements?
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/what-s-behind-russian-support-world-s-separatist-movements-n614196
Putin’s really getting a bonanza return on his investment right now. With Republicans holding up Ukraine aid and deepening national divisions to the point where we literally have “free states” for women and ones where the state owns their bodies, it’s hard to see where Putin’s plan could have gone better from his point of view.
Yup, especially after the money Putin pumped into the GOP to suppress gun control legislation after Citizens United — we’re literally shooting ourselves to death, no extra effort required to fund a military incursion a la Ukraine.
MAGA pro lifers are very selective about who gets to live.
Thanks to Moms for Liberty for getting voters to flip Central Bucks school board to all Dems.
I’m so happy I feel like a threesome. Where’s Bridget Ziegler?
Thank you, Rayne, for all of this.
“Don’t vote” makes me very angry; all my words get so tangled up, and I don’t know how to untangle them or where even to start. But I don’t start, because at this stage, what is the point? It’s like someone insisting the earth is flat. The degree of deliberate and carefully maintained obtuseness required to so thoroughly disregard reality can’t be pierced by all my rage and my fear and my memories. I’m not Gretchen Whitmer. I’m not strong or brave enough to spill my guts to try to make some difference even while knowing that, to so, too many people, they and I mean nothing. I shouldn’t have to. Nor should anybody else.
I am an engineer and a cis-woman. My experience matches what Rayne says here about her daughter’s. I wish that I had leverage; I do not. My undergraduate advisor pulled me aside to tell me that I should talk less in class so that my classmates would like me better. He said this was an important soft skill that I needed to learn. He was considered a DEI leader in the department. He liked talking about the importance of allyship. I worked with a brilliant engineer whose PhD had once nearly derailed because she told her advisor that she was getting married, and he told her that he was dropping her because married women are too distractible and not sufficiently dedicated to their studies since obviously their priority becomes their husbands. Both of these were relatively recent. My brief career actually in engineering was an exercise in being acutely aware that I was there on the sufferance of my cis-male colleagues who greatly outnumbered me.
I went back to the chronically underfunded field that I love, and I apply my skills there. I don’t know what happens to us in the future that the GOP wants. I don’t know what my job and my field looks like after 2024. I don’t know how we can keep doing our work and uphold our duties and protect and care for the people who are our responsibility. I know we have to try but it’s frightening.
I used to be a nursing assistant. I did that for years and then all through night school and state college. In 2017, notices went up all over the hospital where I worked. They appeared overnight. They had instructions on what to do if ICE came to the hospital. Who to call. Remember everything we ever ground into you about patient confidentiality and HIPAA. Do not under any circumstances go anywhere with them. I’d been a CNA for over a decade, and I’d never seen such a thing.
I didn’t get floated up to OB very often, but it did happen sometimes. I remember they had these butterflies printed on quarter sheets. You put the butterfly on the door, and you kept the door closed, and you let that person stay in there as long as they wanted, and you had a quiet private room on a regular floor waiting for them so when they were ready, they wouldn’t have to stay somewhere with the new post-partum couplets and the newborns’ cries.
And I remember getting floated up there one day, and there was a butterfly on a door. Something that had gone undetected. It wasn’t survivable. But it wasn’t immediately non-survivable. The butterfly was there when I got on shift and it was still there, on that closed door, when I went off shift.
I looked the syndrome up, later. It was bad.
We couldn’t do anything really. It felt like all we had to offer was that paper butterfly on a closed door. It felt so useless. Kate Cox doesn’t even get that though. It is horrific and it is wrong.
Anyway, I am going to vote, as I have voted, and as I will continue to vote until I can’t anymore. I can do so very little to protect the people that I care about; I can do so very little to protect myself. But I can do this. And so, I will.
Thank you for sharing your experience. We don’t hear enough from the persons who provide care for parents who’ve had to deal with infant mortality so immediately after birth due to problematic deliveries or genetic disorders.
Nor do we hear enough from health care workers who are traumatized trying to help women suffering miscarriages. My mother worked as an OB nurse in Ohio during the late 1960s/early 1970s; one woman still haunts her because she arrived bleeding out after an incomplete illegal abortion. That woman should never have had to suffer like that, nor should the health care workers have been traumatized with trying to save someone because men wrote uncaring legislation denying women control of their bodies, preventing them from getting effective health care when they need it.
I appreciate being able to share my experience here.
I spent all of my nursing assistant career in public hospitals, most of it in the ICU. Like I said, I rarely got floated to OB, and the ICU only rarely received OB patients. But rarely is not never. It has been years; I have not forgotten them.
People should be able to get the care that they need. There is no virtue in pain, no meaning in suffering. If it can be prevented, then it should be; if it can be alleviated, then it should be. This is a responsibility.
My great respect to your mother. It does haunt you.
I caught up with my sister yesterday who has been caring for my elderly parents. She asked me my opinion on the Kate Cox v. Texas story because my mother, who isn’t the person she used to be due to dementia, has been extremely angry about Cox’s situation. “No one knows what these women are going through when they have to make this choice. It’s not anybody’s business but theirs,” she told my sister, sounding every bit like she did over several decades.
Yep. The haunting continues.
You said it!
Yeah, I will never understand how anyone who supports pluralism and human dignity could maintain that women who are raped have no right to seek an abortion. But that’s the point isn’t it? The folks who want to force women to bear children whenever and however are not really into pluralism and human dignity and more about propagating more pain and suffering upon the world. To be sure, some of those “unborn baby rights!” people are ignorant but others who advocate for forcing women to bear children are abusers and know exactly what they are doing by terrorizing women and removing choice from womens lives. And not voting these abusive and/or ignorant misogynists out will not resolve this. Not voting for people who want to return womens autonomy to them will not solve this.
Unfortunately, speaking from personal experience, POST-MENOPAUSAL women in abortion ban states are also being denied health care too — specifically those who require gynecological surgery that involves less-than-‘simple’-hysterectomy, which insurers will not pay for, if a more minimal procedure is medically indicated. And in some cases, this can also put their lives at risk.
[ Mods – this will be a long post. Cut as necessary, delete citations, or tank altogether. I got a lot out of just writing this. Thx ]
Besides waiting several months to see an ob/gyn if you are not pregnant (who rightfully get priority booking), if you’ve had prior c-section deliveries or scarring from prior interventions for abnormal paps, you may not find a surgeon who can perform the minimally invasive procedures your health insurance requires and your body prefers. (Hysterectomy recovery can be 6 to 8 weeks off work. Hysteroscopy D&C requires 1 day for procedure and zero required days off work to recover.)
A.
Why must we wait so long for appointments, much longer than non-abortion-ban states? (Called “HOSTILE states” in some medical literature.)
1) It starts with the failure to expand medicaid (most ban states did not), which caused the closings of hospitals, and displaced physicians who moved out of state to practice rural medicine in areas with hospital privileges.
2) Second came the reluctance of med students to select training at medical schools in trigger-ban states that were anticipated to ban abortion immediately after Roe fell. These students had to make wise choices because once bans were in place, medical schools in those states would be then barred from offering medical training to meet graduate accreditation standards.
3) And third, after Roe fell:
a) Med school graduates flocked to non-ban states and
b) then came the exodus of doctors who practiced ob/gyn care. My 54-year-old doc who delivered my 25-year-old son was not able to stomach being subject to being imprisoned for making a medical judgement that is later determined by non-medical people to be improper. She felt she took an oath to offer the medically expected “standard of care” that was now being altered due to politics. Her ‘retiring’ early, in my opinion, seems quite logical.
4) This isn’t just ob/gyn care — all women’s medical health services are effected in ban-states, including breast cancer care for the wife of Trump’s former surgeon general in Indiana!
B.
And then there is the shortage of more surgically-experienced ob/gyns.
1) Minimally invasive gynecology (MIG, MIGs or EMIGS) is relatively new, so the old timers who were too rooted to move out of state don’t have the tools to perform these, and with the doctor shortage, have no time to pursue training. Doctors trained in these procedures are those who are more surgeon-focussed-practicioners than baby-delivering ones, but whose skills can deteriorate with less-frequent surgical practice. They therefore tend to prefer to practice in states where their skills are less likley to become rusty, and of course, this means states where surgical abortion is not only practiced legally, but is also essential to save lives in some cases, which is the most rewarding for the surgeon-focussed practicioner who don’t as frequently experience the joy of catching vaginally delivered babies.
2) For lesser surgically experienced ob/gyns, minimally invasive procedures like hysteroscopies on complicated, but very ordinary, post-menopausal cases,
a) can be made workable in many cases, but these require overnight, INTERNAL (not oral) administration of — wait for it — ABORTION DRUGS — to properly make their bodies amenable for surgery….
b) the same drugs that are strictly controlled in abortion ban states, that hospitals no longer carry, and that doctors have curbed non-obstetric use of due to surveillance by state authorities, among other things.
C.
So why does this increase the risk of death for women in abortion-ban states (who have a less-experienced doctor cohort who cannot remove tumors, nor surgically biopsy them, due to inexperience; inadequate training; and no spare time to learn ‘newer’ or less frequently utilized surgical techniques)?
1) Having financial means to travel for care reduces this risk, of course. But ‘having the means’ requires:
a) first getting insurance clearance for out-of-network doctor, and hospital stay, if required, and
b) having financial resources to travel out of state 3 or more times, at several months apart, and
i) might include at least one multi-day stay away,
ii) accompanied by adult driver who is also off work, staying in hotel, for up to a week.
2) Without these resources, women must wait until their tumors become cancerous and thereby qualify for an insurance-paid hysterectomy.
3) How do non-MIG trained ob/gyns determine if tumors are cancerous when they’re incapable of surgically biopsying them? They determine this by having radiologists interpret vaginal-wand ultrasounds subjected on these patients quarterly to biannually (depending on insurance coverage, among other things).
4) Risk?
a) Can non-cancerous tumors turn to cancerous in 6 months or less? Yes.
b) What is the false-negative rate for radiological mis-reads? (Calling a tumor benign when it’s cancerous). It’s not zero!
And just like all other cancers out there — the earlier the intervention, the longer your life expectancy.
D.
“What about paying cash for the hysterectomy? Who cares about insurance. It’ll cost $2500 in cash and opportunity cost to get the insurance-paid procedure out of state anyway. Just stay in -state and pay out of pocket for a hysterectomy and pester your insurance co to reimburse you.”
Well, multiple that dollar amount times 10. Then consider: there are 2 ways to perform hysterectomy. Think BIG SCAR, 2-3 day hospital stay, more expensive (2x the cost), and much longer recovery (+/- 2 months). Now, think NO SCAR, 1 or 0 day hospital stay, half the price, and one third to one half the time to recover (+/- 2 weeks) and half the time off work. Which one of these is more readily accessible in my abortion ban state? Can you guess?
E.
I seriously doubt the older conservative female voters thought about any potential personal costs for themselves when they consistently voted for abortion banning lawmakers. When one of them dies as collaterol damage from this, will it make the news?
Selfishly, I talk here from the experience of a privately-insured white woman. Please know, the landscape for women of color in my state, BOTH pre-and post-menopause is much worse than for white women…especially in the area of maternal life expectancy, maternal and fetal mortality, and pre- and post-natal care; and even worse for those without private health insurance. It’s no irony that abortion-ban states also have the fewest maternal supports, which disproportionately affects these families as well.
I proudly was a member of BLSA all my years in law school, but I can’t pretend to adequately speak from the perspective of my black and brown sisters. We still have our group texts, and it’s quite obvious to me that the vestiges of Jim Crow have very long arms.
For all my female friends and especially for my 27 and 29 year old daughters — yes I am pissed off.
But, for myself, I am scared to death.
CITATIONS:
A.1)
– https://www.npr.org/2022/08/18/1111344810/abortion-ban-states-social-safety-net-health-outcomes
A.2)
– https://www.aamc.org/news/how-repeal-roe-v-wade-will-affect-training-abortion-and-reproductive-health
– https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/18/obgyn-doctor-abortion-law-ban
– https://www.axios.com/2023/04/18/abortion-ban-states-drop-student-residents
A. 3)a)
– https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2023/09/29/abortion-new-doctors-avoid-conservative-states-survey-shows /70980770007/
A.4)
– https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/05/23/1177542605/abortion-bans-drive-off-doctors-and-put-other-health-care-at-risk
B.
– https://www.mayoclinic.org/departments-centers/minimally-invasive-gynecologic-surgery/overview/ovc-20424071
– generally, what’s involved in upskill (and fellow) training https://aagl.org/
– specific upskill discussed PMID: 28577618 located at pubmed.gov directy of peer reviewed medical literature
B.1)
conversations with 3 personal doctors
B.2)a)
– peer reviewed medical studies, located at pubmed.gov under numbers, PMID: 27660411, PMID: 36037813, y
– https://johnshopkinssph.libsyn.com/bonus-mifepristone-on-trial-an-unprecedented-overreach
– increased surveillance, for all https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/12/12/pharmacy-records-police-privacy-abortion/
B.2)b)
– https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/08/abortion-bans-methotrexate-mifepristone-rheumatoid-arthritis/
– ‘chilling effect’ or self-regulation by doctors due to bans https://www.wyso.org/2023-12-08/ohios-new-abortion-amendment-is-in-effect-but-doctors-are-reluctant-to-make-any-big-changes
D.
– https://www.newchoicehealth.com/laparoscopic-hysterectomy/cost
– https://www.webmd.com/women/hysterectomy-recovery
E.
– https://healthcity.bmc.org/policy-and-industry/black-women-are-bearing-burden-abortion-bans
– https://www.npr.org/2022/08/18/1111344810/abortion-ban-states-social-safety-net-health-outcomes
– https://www.reuters.com/world/us/roe-v-wade-ruling-disproportionately-hurts-black-women-experts-say-2022-06-27/
– https://www.splcenter.org/news/2023/05/05/supreme-courts-abortion-ruling-affects-black-people-low-incomes
Thank you x10. Like, I guess, so many old white males, I had no idea of the breadth of consequences of Dobbs. And thanks to the mods for (I assume) not cutting.
Thank you for teaching me something I knew nothing about.
I have a wife, two daughters 43 and 49, a granddaughter, a sister, nieces, cousins, friends.
Again, thank you.
Thank you for sharing. I am so sorry that you’ve had cause to learn this from experience, and I hope that you are taking care and will be all right.
I very much appreciate you taking the time to write this. It’s such an important and badly under-recognized point: you cannot yank on one strand of a spider’s web and expect that only that one strand will move and break.
Outstanding comment, TJE. Thank you so much — this is essential knowledge that ALL of us should acquire. And thank you, Rayne, for this post, too plus your recommendation that TJE’s comment become a post in itself. THIS is why emptywheel is exceptional!
Thank you for writing this article. It needed to be said and you did that very well.
It is important that people vote so they can have control over their own lives and bodies. Those who seek to control other people’s lives usually are control freaks.
It is only when we vote that we take control over our lives.
Read the list of health problems a child with this disease will have. How do these compulsory pregancy people expect parents to pay for this care? Women in Texas need to go out and vote, every one of them and rid themselves of these Republicans who will not permit women to control their own bodies and make their own health care decisions.
Adding to PaulAnka123 above, this is the text I sent my daughters yesterday. IF YOU ARE NOT MAD AS HELL ALREADY, regardless of your age, gender, or gender identity, this should do it. Ohio is the state where voters just passed a referendum preventing an abortion ban a few weeks ago. Yet, abortion was illegal until last week, in theory.
“Yes, of course, the Ohio legislature can force a pregnant Ohio resident to deliver her 22 week deceased baby in her home toilet, even if her 1st and 2nd choice for delivery location was a hospital, but she was turned away — twice — after her water broke. Women are not entitled to medical care even if their water has broken until the state of Ohio, not doctors, say the baby is indeed dead. The amount of physical pain, trauma, or grief Ohio requires these women to suffer is not considered as relevant for any reason under Ohio law.
“But there are more surprising lessons to be learned from this case linked below. Even without causing the baby’s death, women who choose a toilet-delivery, even if they did not know delivery was imminent (and even if it’s HER 3RD CHOICE) can be prosecuted under Ohio law for voluntarily “putting” their baby in the toilet, even after the baby’s confirmed prior death, if she does not dispose of the baby’s corpse properly. The number of times the pregnant woman is denied hospital care is not relevant. Women not knowing proper disposal techniques; women being traumatized, in shock, or home alone; or women hemorraging to death are not excused. Medical waste, and deceased corpses (a distinction lay people cannot make) not in posession of medical staff must still be disposed of properly based on Ohio regulation for each.
“Ohio requires all pregnant women and girls, no matter their maternal age, deliver ALIVE babies at FULL TERM, and the state will investigate women who deliver stillborn (dead) babies early, or even full term. The men who impregnate these women are exempt from investigation, prosecution, or punishment, of course.
“Ohioan Brittany Watts miscarries in bathroom, now facing abuse of corpse charges
https://www.wkbn.com/news/local-news/warren-news/trumbull-county-grand-jury-to-hear-abuse-of-corpse-case/ “
I think you’ve written enough for a post between these two comments you’ve left. Would you be comfortable with submitting them as a post for publication here? I think the points you made need a wider audience.
Let me know by reply to this comment, thanks!
Sure. Do you need me to resend in some way, or can Mods do this by just moving the text?
Not internet savvy, so feel free to dumb down any instruction to 5th grade level, if this requires further action on my part.
I want to also offer my most generous thanks, Rayne, for your exceptional post and this open thread. Me and my girls have been going through the stages of grief since the Dobbs decision and your post is helping us move from 3/4 bargaining/depression to stage 5 ‘acceptance’.
Except we have renamed stage 5 ‘rejection’, to make it clear for this we will fight.
I know that you, and others in this thread, have already noted that Black people have a much higher maternal mortality rate, a higher infant mortality rate, and are less likely to have access to quality care. But I read what you said about Ms. Watts (twice) seeking care at the hospital and being turned away. And while I think that this awful risk exists now no matter what race or ethnicity someone is – as you said, “Ohio requires all pregnant women and girls, no matter their maternal age, deliver ALIVE babies at FULL TERM,” I think that also, Ms. Watts was less likely than someone who was not Black to have her symptoms, including pain, taken seriously and appropriately treated.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4843483
https://magazine.jhsph.edu/2020/black-womens-biggest-health-issue-system
Sorry, forgot to add:
The first link is to a copy of an article on PubMed. “Hoffman KM, Trawalter S, Axt JR, Oliver MN. Racial bias in pain assessment and treatment recommendations, and false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2016 Apr 19.”
The second link is to the article “Black Women’s Biggest Health Issue Is the System,” Hopkins Bloomberg Health magazine, published November 2020.
“I think that also, Ms. Watts was less likely than someone who was not Black to have her symptoms, including pain, taken seriously and appropriately treated.”
AGREED!
Besides the evidence cited in your linked articles is Linda Villarosa’s 2022 book on this topic called “Under the Skin” –an essential read. It exposes not only doctors failing to listen to black patients, but instruments that don’t work on darker pigmented skin, and the debunked, but still widely held, race-based assumptions about pain tolerance and expected patient complaince that doctors hold, which affect the quality and type of health care offered to (even fully insured) black patients, and that greatly impact health outcomes.
This isn’t just a women’s fight. It’s an INEQUALITY fight too, for sure. Thanks for the links.
The Republican Party is a death cult. They want people to die. It makes them feel powerful and in control.They glory in destruction.
Preying on those with less agency is both an enabling mechanism and a goal in itself. They prefer to destroy the most vulnerable members of society, whether it be minorities, the poor, non-christian religious groups, sexual minorities, etc, etc. Given the ability they would do it in public to celebrate their power and further inflict damage on survivors.
When Trump actually says he wants to be a dictator, take him at his word. At this point your hair should be on fire. Any response less then full-on outrage is not enough. We must all exert maximum effort because the stakes are so immense.
Sadistic psychopaths vote for and elect other sadistic psychopaths who will craft laws and policies which will cause harm to others.
It’s who they are.
Standard Republicanism.
“Women should be punished for having an abortion.” – Trump, 2018.
“Many people said it couldn’t be done, but I did it anyway. I terminated Roe v Wade.” — Trump, 2023.
Here’s a slogan for ya: “If we don’t vote like our life depends on it, they will vote because their White depends on it.” It kinda rhymes.
Don’t just dump comments like this without adding context, especially if you’re a cis-man commenting under a post about women’s reproductive rights.
The context you should have included is that BIPOC persons with uteruses are at much greater risk to their health and life under anti-abortion laws passed by legislatures which are nearly always in the US composed of white cis-men — hello, white supremacist patriarchy.
It’s not a coincidence that at 28.1 deaths per 100,000 births, the maternal mortality rate in Texas is among the worst in the US, and the persons affected most are BIPOC women.
I am a survivor of childhood rape. It is a trauma that affected me deeply. I was never more happy than when menopause arrived and my fear of pregnancy ended. My fury at the sick mostly white and old men who perpetuate this hatred of women does not abate. I remain hopeful that women and our allies will drive these evil doers OUT with our votes. The horrors of these kinds of stories are powerful. Thank you for the post, Rayne.
What pisses me off to no end are the progressive purity types who say they won’t vote for the Democrats because they haven’t delivered on every single one of their progressive policy goals (plus a pony). Get.A.Grip. Your choice in an election isn’t between a Democrat and some mythical perfect unicorn – and nonexistent- candidate who can do no wrong. No. Your choice is between a Democrat is is substantially more likely to work to improve your life and the lives of others vs. a Republican (or whatever they’re calling themselves these days) who will do everything they can to control you and your life according to what they think you should do, irrespective of how it might affect you.
So goddam yes, vote. Vote in every election and vote for the Democrat Every Time, even if s/he isn’t all that you might want – they’re 1000% better than any Republican.
But don’t stop at just voting. Serve as an election worker and encourage your friends and neighbors to work too. Even encourage your Republican neighbors to serve so they can see for themselves that the process is fair and fraud-free – maybe that’ll shut them up about it.
Sorry for the rant, but I am a voting zealot so this comes from my heart.
And never forget – any Democrat will serve you better than any Republican.
Preach, sister. I have written numerous times about local and state party operations, that leaders are people who show up. That’s all it takes to become part of the solution, part of those forging the future — just fucking show up at the party meetings and fully commit to participation. Do the damned work.
The rigid progressive purists are generally morons who have never actually had to work with a diverse group of people to achieve a goal. Germany’s Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke wrote,
Purists can spout progressive positions all they want, but once they make contact with reality — the persons, groups, and conditions on which purists rely to effect their position — they will have to make compromises in order to achieve anything at all.
I’ll quote another German who alludes to the necessity of compromise: “Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best.” — Otto von Bismarck
The importance, in fact nobility, of compromise bedevils our politics. We watch one GOP speaker after another getting drummed out just for dealing with Democrats and we recognize that absurdity. But I still recall friends who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Hillary just because they had been Bernie purists, like Susan Sarandon.
This may be our biggest challenge in the coming year: answering the arguments against Biden that are based in the fact that he’s not someone’s ideal candidate. This will mean hearing out both idiocy and reason. Yeah, he’s 81, but listen to his press conference yesterday; sure, he stuttered, but he was saying words that mattered and he knew what they meant. The same cannot be said for Trump.
And no, I don’t completely agree with how he’s handled Netanyahu’s warmongering, at least what I’ve seen publicly. I wish we would put conditions on how our Israel aid can be used–not on destroying southern Gaza and killing civilians. But Biden’s not about to hand Ukraine over to Putin.
Biden’s stuttering has little to do with age and everything to do with a lifelong speech disorder.
Give me the guy with the speech disorder over the lifelong scofflaw with a predilection for abusing women and Hitler’s speeches.
That was why I used the word stutter; I assumed that folks here know about Biden’s speech issues. But thank you, Rayne, for reminding me that not everyone does, and that it bears telling that story to people who bring it up when his speech falters.
Let’s make it a trifecta: Politics is the long slow boring of hard boards.
Max Weber
My go to quote:
“If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for … but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong.”
― Robert A. Heinlein
Yes, Democrats may give you a reason to vote against them, but Republicans give you every reason to vote against them.
Excellent post Rayne. Thank you.
“I have less rights than mom did a couple of years ago,” said a teenager to her father going to vote at the Virginia mid-terms in November.
Accurate assessment. Out of the mouths of babes.
I certainly never had to worry about access to birth control like my daughter, who found herself forced to juggle her needs against the very state law Whitmer protested 10 years ago. Ridiculous that she couldn’t obtain birth control pills prescribed for multiple health conditions under her health insurance, and that she was limited as to how many pills she could obtain at any time as if they were still being paid for by insurance.
My guess would be that in the post-WWII era, women’s rights peaked about 1980, before the accession of Ronald Reagan. They have declined since, in ways few imagined, even during the Reagan/Bush years, when the hard right openly revived their goal of keeping women barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen (and bedroom). That’s a whole generation’s worth of decline that needs to be reversed. Today’s reality includes the promise of tomorrow’s.
Women are stronger than men, they have endured several millennia of abuse and subjugation by men. The act of preventing reproductive health freedom is the epitome of subjugation and it lies at the crossroads of cruelty and religious dogma. Any man or woman that does not vote for candidates that support full reproductive freedom is complicit in continuing this horrible abuse.
August 18th, 1920 Women were granted the right to vote by men through the sheer determination of women influencing men by their dogged determination. Women need to use this right to vote along with enlighten men, of which there are far too few, to help solve this problem. Women need to be elected so that they have a majority in every school board, state and federal office in this backward progressing land we live. After all they are at least 50% of the population so they should naturally occupy minimally that proportion of elected office. Let us face the facts, men have made the most of all political decision to guide America through history to this point and I got to say their track record sucks. Constant wars and oppression has been mans guiding light. Well the oppression woman continues in full force today and it needs to stop.
Vote for women and not conservative religious ideological women. Most men would need to stand on a woman’s shoulders to kiss their own ass.
“they have endured several millennia of abuse and subjugation” — depending on the culture, more than a mere several millennia. Cambridge’s Professor Mary Beard recounted in an essay how in Homer’s text The Odyssey, Odysseus’ son Telemachus suppresses his mother’s speech:
This was already ancient behavior multiple millennia ago.
“Women were granted the right to vote” — examine this language carefully. Who has the power to grant innate human rights? Women demanded their rights.
“Women need” — you write this a couple times. Don’t speak for women, don’t tell them what we need/must do. This kind of thinking and language doesn’t center women as agents who can exercise their own autonomy and agency. Learn how to listen and act upon what you hear from women rather than insist on what they need in order to have your voice heard.
Stop manifesting Telemachus and his suppression of women’s speech by insisting you must be heard over women about their own rights, their own persons.
If more men squelched their egos, shut up and listen, change might happen.
Thank you, I do believe my use of the word several more the covers the time frame for the writings of Homer, estimated to be during the 8th to 7th century BCE. I guess to be more accurate I could have said 50 millennia to include all civilization from the most ancient Australian Aboriginals to present.
Regarding the use of the words “women need”, In the first use, I apologize, this was poorly worded, it could be taken as if I was instructing women what to do. Concerning the second use this was stating the obvious that women should be represent by at least 50% of all elected officials through out all forms of government. You are correct women did demand their right by persuading elected men to vote for change. It was a massive struggle to achieve that goal.
Please do not tell me I am channeling the son of Odysseus and his wife, Penelope. Your knowledge far exceeds mine in this area of studies. I had long forgotten Telemachus.
I have always followed the ethos that you learn more from listing than talking.
What I was trying to do is give a full throated support for women being equal citizens. I apologize again for my poor wording and sentence structure. The only way that will be achieved here in America is by voting progressive in and cretins out.
You want to give support to women? Stop insisting on being heard. Shut the fuck up and listen to women.
You literally spent another 230 words refusing to do so.
Ah yes, who gets to decide? Incumbant Congressional Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah) has offered thoughts on this.
Below is a clip of Fall 2022 debate featuring Utah-3 Rep. Curtis and his Democratic Party challenger. Both debaters are white men. Moderator is white woman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isOrGMAbjQg
@ 57:08 Mod Q: “When do you feel there is an appropriate limitation on abortion?”
@ 57:17 Dem challenger starts by calling the Dobb’s decision an “abomination” (quoting Alito’s characterization of Roe), and offers Roe ‘viability’ as his demarcation line.
BUT THE ANSWER OFFERED BY REP. JOHN CURTIS IS WORTH IT’S WEIGHT IN GOLD. Curtis won his Nov. 2022 race, of course.
@ 58:40 Curtis replies by first lamenting …”I really wish women could make this decision” and that “As a man, I really wish I didn’t have to make this decision (FOR women)…..I get it…it stinks.” But this is what the people asked for when they elected men to office, he goes on to explain.
@ 59:10 (Unspoken expression) Irony is NOT lost on his Dem debate challenger.
And despite the argument that the law allows abortions in cases where “a physician believes a medical emergency exists” and the TX Supreme Court’s insistence that doctors are the ones to make that call, Ken Paxton threatened to sue any doctor providing an abortion to Cox on that basis, even though she was leaking amniotic fluid and facing other complications. So doctors risk being sued even in cases where in their judgment there is a medical emergency. Also keep in mind another aspect of Texas’s SB8: it allows private individuals to sue anyone who performs or “aids and abets” a post-heartbeat abortion. I’m wondering whether someone is going to try to sue Kate Cox’s husband for aiding her in getting an abortion out of state, despite Kavanaugh’s insistence that that would remain legal.
Yesterday, a pregnant woman in Kentucky who was suing over the state’s near-total abortion ban learned that her embryo no longer has a heartbeat, and it’s unclear whether her suit will continue.
All of this makes my blood boil, and I’ll absolutely vote. I also expect to be an election worker again.
Muting and unfollowing a person that suggested “Don’t vote” may ease your personal aggravation, but public pushback would have been more effective in preserving democracy, IMHO.
No. It wouldn’t. It would only serve to harden lines in this case. I’m not sharing more details but you need to know that attacking some individuals doesn’t always yield one’s intended consequences, and in this case doing so might have lost more voters.
I chose to shout louder by using this bully pulpit at emptywheel, exhorting citizens to vote and to persuade others.
Thanks for telling us, Captain Obvious.
I was a homebirth midwife for 18 years. *Most* (this is only anecdotally) midwives I know do not attend miscarriages at home after 10 weeks or so because it can be very dangerous most often from hemorrhage due to incomplete passage of the placenta. During the latter half of a normal pregnancy blood volume nearly doubles so that the blood lost during a normal birth is not dangerous. A miscarriage does not have that benefit. Blood loss from hemorrhage during miscarriage or birth has long term consequences on the mother’s health from leaching of minerals from the bones to terrible depression and fatigue.
I decided pretty early on in my practice I wanted to learn to attend miscarriages because of all the stories I heard of how poorly women were cared for in ERs and how traumatic it was. So I learned. And I became good at it. I could not have done it without the amazing OB who backed up my clients to consult with because of the complications involved and the need for antibiotics many times.
But I will tell you I would rather have a woman accidentally birth without me than miscarry without me because of all the complications I dealt with during miscarriages.
This issue is so personal for me and brings up so much rage I almost didn’t post. Knowing what I know and seeing the complications of miscarriage first hand it is utter malpractice to not allow pregnancy termination or medically manage miscarriage when it is imminent. I am just boggled that these laws are forcing women out of hospitals and back home with no care and told to wait. Miscarriage isn’t like that. It’s a multi-step process that if you read incorrectly you have a woman experiencing alone with no medical backup.
This legal situation is not viable because lawsuits from women who experience complications from unmanaged miscarriages will start stressing the legal system and stories such as Ms. Cox’s will I believe galvanize women to become the activists they need to be for themselves. I do not believe women will put up with being systematically brutalized for much longer and women will not only vote to take back their rights to safe healthcare but truly get in the streets en mass.
At least that is the story I tell myself not to go crazy or become profoundly depressed.
Rayne, thanks for this conversation and creating a safe place for me to vent about something that breaks my heart even more profoundly than the cancer that is Donald Trump who brought about this situation. When I can’t sleep my mind often goes to how many women suffered today with my midwife memory filling in all the possible horrors they experienced. I can’t wait for that to end.
Thanks for sharing your experience and insight. The later a pregnancy can progress, the more a woman’s hormones change in preparation for birth. Some of that excessive blood loss in miscarriages earlier in a pregnancy is due to the lack of hormones which stem blood to the uterine wall during true term labor.
All the more reason why women must have good health care during pregnancy if society is truly committed to healthy babies with healthy mothers, even if every pregnancy isn’t to term.
Fancy Chicken, thank you for sharing your experience, knowledge, and insight. You add a crucial perspective to this discussion, and one about which the “decision makers” clearly did not consult anyone with your expertise. Miscarriage has so long been one of those medically marginalized events; women talk about it with each other, help each other through it if they can, but at least in my youth had a hard time finding resources about it. (I don’t think I’m just speaking for myself, but shame played a role too.)
My own rage at the Texas SC ruling was triggered by the obtuse, high-handed language with which they told Kate Cox’s doctor that (paraphrase) it wasn’t a court issue but one of “medical judgment”–the problem being that they’ve criminalized medical judgments they don’t like, but they won’t say why.
They’ve created a legal minefield, essentially. Doctors who want to offer care must dance through it and pray, because they refuse to provide a map of where the mines are.
Steve Vladeck:
“SCOTUS *agrees* to take up cases abortion pill cases; will reconsider lower-court rulings limiting access to mifepristone. The Court *denied* the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine’s cross-petition, a strong signal that the justices are focused only on the plaintiffs’ standing. …
“This is a very *good* sign for access to mifepristone; by denying AHM’s cross-petition, #SCOTUS *declined* to add the merits of the FDA’s 2000 approval of mifepristone to their review. Instead, they’re focused on standing—where a reversal reverts to the pre-Kascmaryk status quo.”
“….where a reversal reverts to the pre-Kascmaryk status quo.”…
for everyone except Kascmaryk, who could find Standing for a swingset missing a swing. His standing analysis reminded me of Cannon’s attempt to apply precedent in her review of equitable jurisdiction.
Mind Boggling
Although I agree 100% with the thrust of this article and the comments, I believe it is important to note where one of the main sources of the misogyny and the critical, overwhelming support of white evangelicals of the party that institutionalizes the misogyny.
1 Timothy 5:14 KJV – I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.
1 Timothy 2:11-2 KJV – Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
1 Corinthians 14:34 KJV – Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.
Deuteronomy 25:5 KJV – If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband’s brother unto her.
1 Corinthians 11:9 KJV – Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.
Many more, but you get the point. We should realize that a significant, powerful group of voters do not see this issue as a human rights issue at all, but as a brazen defiance of (their interpretation) of the will of God himself. And they will vote. Their support of the GOP and their policies has little to do with their (lack of) admiration for the deeply flawed leaders, but as an existential struggle to impose (their interpretation) of God’s will. I am going to Alabama in a few days to celebrate Christmas with family and will experience the madness in its full glory.
Many many years ago the BBC produced a play in which an Orthodox Jew was faced with agonies, reconciling that Deuteronomy 25 passage with his actual regard for his widowed sister-in-law, not to mention the bigamy laws. I think they even shared a home as specified in the verse. I forget how it ended, but it does suggest not all of Deuteronomy is binding (yes, I know that was sardonic).
You may have noticed that all those citations are from the Epistles. Paul’s version of Christianity does not necessarily reflect that of Christ in the Gospels, but it sure does provide fodder for contemporary theocrats with a patriarchal bent.
And even more to the point, the first three references cited have an….interesting place in church tradition. There are many scholars who argue Paul didn’t even write 1 Timothy, and that portions of 1 Corinthians (and a fraction of 2 Corinthians) had inclusions that aren’t identifiable with the rest of the letter, portions that happen to include BOTH 1 Corinthians references here. Of course, if indeed Paul did NOT write 1 Timothy, that makes the very idea of canon explode given that the literal first word of 1 Timothy is “Paul”, and books written by someone other than who they claim were SUPPOSED to be excluded from canon.
All that to say, the church can’t even agree on these points, so anyone from within the church trying to enact any bearing on the rest of the world is not just outrageous to all the rest of us, but isn’t even consistent within their walls.
The Epistles were written to apply to local problems, not general problems, and yet people take them as applying generally. That’s a failure of education in churches and seminaries.
Sorry if I offend anyone with my God-empowered language below, but I need to armor up Jim Luther for his Christmas trip. Below is written in the language that evangelicals speak, and is the framing that reaches them.
Jim-
There are no genders in heaven — all souls in heaven are not gender-distinguishable without a carnate body and are, therefore, equal. Since believers would agree that personalities and gifts unique to each person come from God, what was His intent when He created ALPHA-females? For them to step aside and NOT LEAD when God clearly and immutably MADE THEM a leader? (Think beyond the iditarod. Did God uniquely select and gift Kay Ivey to be quiet? Was His intent for her not to lead the state?)
Gender-distinction on earth gave God a means to promulgate the advancement of many species, and given that God also created more than 1,500 species in the animal kingdom who engage in homosexual behavior, God didn’t need every member to pro-create. (He gave each currently-thriving species excess capacity in this regard). Additionally, given that God created as many intersex people (born with both male & female traits) as red heads, He also didn’t give every person the proper equipment to actually BE procreators (many intersex are infertile).
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bisexual-species/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/06/30/queer-animals-are-everywhere-science-is-finally-catching/
https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/lgbtq-behaviours-animal-kingdom/
https://www.intersexequality.com/how-common-is-intersex-in-humans/
Gender was an instrument of convenience for God to acheive a purpose — earth dwelling in perpetuity. Submission, dominance, and power were not needed to acheive this end, and may be inconsistent with it.
This is my counter to the scripture you cite that, yes, I hear a lot in my evangelical community and this framing has worked quite well, actually, in convincing many of them that women are equal and whom you vote for matters (but, I admit, only among the wives or daughters, who are now working on their husbands or dads). Between me and my girls, we flipped 4 Roy Moore voters to Doug Jones when he ran for re-election. Please don’t doubt your ability to speak convincingly to Alabama evangelical women. They are convincible.
In addition, 70% of women seeking abortions when Roe was law identified as Christian, 40 percent attended church monthly, 20 percent weekly+ https://www.christianpost.com/news/70-of-women-who-get-abortions-identify-as-christians-survey-finds.html And anti-abortion activists so commonly sought abortion care from abortion clinic where they picketted that abortion providers developed a name for this, couching it in the language of what type of exceptions the protestor likely embraces: “rape, incest, and me.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-women-who-leave-anti-abortion-picket-lines-to-get-abortions
Snark aside, it is likely true that Evangelical women were among those seeking abortion services before Roe fell. They certainly do not need to be outed, or forced to tell their story, but they may be moved by the story of others.
Rayne, thank you for this post. It’s much appreciated. I do note the bylines.
My rant follows. It would have been much longer, except that I did look at the comments that had already appeared and edited my comment accordingly – I strongly agreed with so many of them.
I’m typing as straight-cis-white-male in Texas, in the same county as Kate Cox. I’m pretty isolated (I work remotely for an out of state employer, and I even attend weekly church services remotely), and even *I* know Texas women who have been abused by the Texas legal system when their pregnancies were not viable. None of them have died yet, but I emphasize “yet” (noting all the risk factors described in Rayne’s post, and in comments).
I’d already posted about Kate Cox on my own Facebook page, but did not note that several Texas counties are working to restrict the ability of anyone traveling from OR THROUGH their county to a location where they can access said termination.
My reference for that is at https://www.texastribune.org/2023/10/23/abortion-travel-ban-lubbock-county/. My twin 16-year-old granddaughters live in that county.
I’d like to think those restrictions would be overturned, but I can’t know that. I do know that going to court to overturn them, county by county, won’t be cheap or quick.
I regret that I can only vote against these sadists once in each election.
“You may dislike a two-party system. Point taken. But do not tell me the two parties are the same because one of the two parties doesn’t believe women are entitled to the same rights as men.”
Thanks, Rayne—great post. when it comes to Ds, Rs, and women’s reproductive rights, the contrast is precisely that stark and our choice exactly that clear.
And make no mistake, it is very much in the interest of certain groups to make that clear choice you describe blurrier. There is a portion of political science literature about “encouraging” abstentions in voting. Summary: such efforts are almost always are nefarious in purpose, with the bad actors being both within a country and even international. Rayne posted links in an earlier comment about Russia being tied to secession movements. If they’re willing to go THAT far, they most certainly are tied to “Stay Home” efforts such as the unfortunately catchy “Bern it up or burn it down”.
This is a continuing power play by those men who quake in their boots towards the strengths and capabilities of women. The religious bibles/tenets do not espouse treating women, even slightly, the way these male “leaders” do. I do not believe those men who hide behind their supposed “religion” and “god” actually believe what they speak.
As to voting, history is something quickly forgotten. Women weren’t even allowed to have their own bank accounts until the mid-1970s. They had to get their husband’s permission. Many or most of the voting women of today do not remember this and most all else impacting women’s right to equal treatment and American life.
Environmental sustainability and climate change are major topics these days, but how come I hear nothing anymore about birth control and over population. Aside from the (environmental and financial) impacts of women once again “encouraged” to have larger families, including here in the U.S., the impacts of this globally are to further degrade the participation and role of women in communities, decision-making and life.
Welcome to “Make America Great Again.” Notice those who espouse this “philosophy” do not define the time period they are talking about when they say “again.” The Equal Rights Amendment was never passed, not even in 2023.
I have a different, yet woman-related, issue with the government of the state of Texas. You see, I have one daughter who is a trans woman, and another who has moved to Houston, TX.
The current attitude of the Texas state government is that I am a child abuser, or I would have been because I supported her transition, including paying for some medical interventions. Two Christmases ago we took out an Airbnb in Houston to spend time with the other (cis) daughter.
When we went to fly back, my trans daughter was harrassed, groped and delayed long enough that she missed her flight home. Because the backscatter machine showed “something unusual”. In a stroke of what turned out to be luck, we (in a different TSA line) had a situation where my wife lost her id, and we also missed the flight, so we all flew back together on an alternate flight.
I have no intention of ever subjecting my daughter to that kind of treatment again. I would have no dealings with Greg Abbot or Ken Paxton if I could.
The parallels to the issues y’all are discussing seem very strong to me. We have a state government deciding that they know much better than the individual in question, the medical people, or the parents of a child. They prohibit medically accepted practice. They exploit ambiguity (this is also a thing in the anti-trans policies of Texas). This is probably because they think that specific, grounded policies will be challenged, and in the case of trans rights, are probably very hard to sustain in court.
I say this not in contrast or reaction to anything in the OP or comments, but in support. I support what you want. I think the problem runs even wider than you realize, though. I expect that there might well be certain things a man might want to do with his own body that the Texas government would outlaw if it could. It’s a much shorter list, but I think the list exists.
Vasectomies have yet to be outlawed in any state. A vasectomy is a safe, medical and legal procedure. Choosing to have a vasectomy is a form of birth control. The right wing conservatives or anti-abortion advocates aren’t opposing a vasectomy. No protesters or protest signs stating: Swim Sperm Swim or Sperm are People Too and Save the Sperm.
No backlash toward men choosing to have a vasectomy and the choices they make for themselves. Why not? Why aren’t men criticized for making choices for their bodies?
Politicians in too many states constructing laws dismissing, disrespecting and degrading women. Double standard? YES! Hypocrites? YES! Controlling? YES!
Do these these men not realize they would not exist without a woman who birthed them into this world!
Excellent points!
Agreed. And why not go one step farther? Make it a crime for a man to use a condom. A crime for the man, not for the woman. And make the condom providers liable.
This should be a point made in arguments against drug-based abortion drugs like mifepristone (RU-486) which SCOTUS will be debating. Why should condoms be permitted without regulation and not mifepristone which has been proven safe?
Clarence Thomas pointedly said this iteration of SCOTUS would go after Griswold v. Connecticut, and here we are.
Thanks for that. After reading your comment, I thought to email this to the attorneys for the party who would make this argument/point, then it struck me that they are the Justice Department. I went on PACER to try to figure out who to email, and couldn’t figure it out. Ah, crap. Maybe Planned Parenthood? I’ll put in some time on some emails here if someone will point me in the right direction; I don’t really have any way of publicizing views, otherwise.
I don’t have a PACER account and often find SCOTUSblog a useful resource. Here’s their page for the two mifepristone cases that will be tried together: https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/food-and-drug-administration-v-alliance-for-hippocratic-medicine-2/
Both the petition for a writ of cert and the Reply from the FDA list Elizabeth Prelogar, the Solicitor General, as Counsel of Record. Here’s the Contact page for her office (no email, though): https://www.justice.gov/osg/contact-office
Prelogar is fantastic.
Tolda: “The parallels to the issues y’all are discussing seem very strong to me. We have a state government deciding that they know much better than the individual in question, the medical people, or the parents of a child.”
and yet, in other circumstances, complete contradiction. some of these “same types” argue that, of course, only parents should have final say about [home] schooling, medical care such as immunization, or other issues!
in other words, pretzel logic: archaic, white-bearded-guy-up-there religion and manly control must be justified, one way or the other.
maybe we should try the beehive or ant colony model?
For those who are mad as hell and looking for a non-party outlet for voter registration and activism, may I suggest the local Planned Parenthood Action affiliate? While this may not be universal, the folks I work with in Seattle are focused on outcomes, respectful of volunteers’ time (meetings start and end on time!) and preferences, and organized as all hell. I also love that our Left Coast blue state group also includes Idaho and Kentucky so that some of our organizing time and money goes to the places that are far too close to Gilead.
My son was raised above the Mason-Dixon line, but he now lives south of it. His partner uses a wheelchair. If they conceive, the potential ill effects on her health from the get-go are many. They live in an Ann Arbor-like progressive ghetto, but I dearly hope they move North beforehand. But, as many know, that’s not always easy.
Please explain to your social media “friend”:
It is your DUTY to pick the next leader of our country. To not vote is unpatriotic.
F*cking sunshine patriots.
Not a friend, with or without scare quotes. Not telling them anything directly — this post was it. I’m not going to add any more details.
It was yet another reminder that “All your faves are problematic” (can’t remember the originator of that quote). Treat faves like the humans they are: flawed, vulnerable, ever in need of more information and education and light.
I’m past 70 now, but when I was going out with a guy, my OB/GYN told me that if I ever thought I was pregnant, or wanted to get pregnant, I needed to come talk with him. Because I’m one of the DES kids, and faced DOUBLE the probability of a miscarriage, just from that. (I was on the pill, and he got a vasectomy, because neither of us wanted kids. Though we broke up, we’re still friends.)
The GOP, especially ini TX, wouldn’t have allowed that.
Ugh. I’d forgotten the long tail of DES. So sorry you’ve had that hanging over you, but glad you didn’t have to deal with a GOP-led Texas.
I wish I had something useful to add other than my extreme sense of rage at the abhorrent behavior of Ken Paxton. We see horrible things on the news all of the time, from sexual assault to serial murderers, but it somehow doesn’t seem as personal to me. I genuinely hate Paxton more than any human being alive.
I am a Texas resident so I can vote and try to change the system, but that seems like so little. If we can get past the voting suppression, especially in Harris county, we could spell the demise of Abbott, Patrick, and Paxton. Can we do it? Theoretically, yes. But I thought that the Dobbs decision would keep the House controlled by the Dems and while it helped, it wasn’t enough. Still, I remain hopeful.
Thanks Rayne. I too am hot and fortunately for me, I am post-menopausal so no longer in danger. I wonder how many grown, living adult women will die (again)? That’s why Roe passed so many years ago. Women will sometimes do anything to end a pregnancy and often that will take their lives when it is not performed by trained professionals in a safe setting. Abortion is safer than childbirth in America–safer than removing tonsils. All of these right wing activities smack of keeping women out: of the boardrooms, the classrooms, the working rooms of the world except the kitchen. We have to vote. Lives depend on it. Thanks for the post.
Amen to all of this.
And, occasionally, we do see a point of light in the darkness.
Per NPR, an Australian court has tossed a woman’s 2-decade-old convictions in the deaths of her 4 young children. She had argued that evidence that was available at the time of her trial, that her children had died of natural causes, was either ignored or dismissed. The jury found otherwise. But in the last five years, the science and the scientists, and now the courts, have come to believe her. At least two daughters are now known to have carried a rare CALM2 genetic variant that could have caused their sudden deaths.
“The system preferred to blame me rather than accept that sometimes children can and do die suddenly, unexpectedly and heartbreakingly,” Folbigg said.
Such a great post, Rayne!
I thought your comment, “Banning access to reproductive health care isn’t hurting just persons of childbearing age by denying them personal freedom – it’s hurting all of us because it’s a restriction on commerce.” was on target in its reference to interstate commerce. Interesting — that’s the tactic that Marshall and Hastie used in Morgan v. Virginia (1946) regarding bus seating — citing the Interstate Commerce Clause instead building the argument on 14th amendment.
We already know that the field of medical practice and research routinely ignores how women’s bodies and functioning are different from men’s, whether it be drug trials and dosing, or brushing off valid complaints as neurotic (especially the experience for women of color).
How wise for Rayne and commenters to point out that “the abortion debate” relates to far more than terminations themselves, but also undermines women’s healthcare across the board, from infancy to old age.
I surmise that for many women it is an excuse to remain detached because they are past child-bearing age; or flippantly, “don’t like abortion? – don’t have one!” attitudes, like mine previously.
However, we are all women, from infant to old lady, who at some point – face it — are going to be given health care ranging from inadequate to egregious.