Today is the one-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. Half the states, containing 25 million women, now have restrictions on abortion. (Handy map.) Fourteen states ban abortion under almost all circumstances. And everything abortion rights activists warned about is already coming to pass:
Exceptions for “life of the mother” force doctors to err on the side of waiting until the patient is near death. In Oklahoma, a woman with a life-threatening pregnancy was told to wait in the parking lot until she was “crashing.” In the states with the most restrictive laws, such as Idaho, doctors have been fleeing the state, leaving a shortage of ob/gyn care for all women.
Exceptions for rape and incest have likewise proved nearly useless in practice. Some require that the victim make an immediate police report after the assault; most rape victims don’t, and those who do aren’t always believed. Most states don’t even make a pretense of this exception; a 10-year-old rape victim had to flee Ohio and have an abortion out of state.
The Texas “bounty” law, which allows lawsuits against anyone vaguely connected with an abortion, has been weaponized in predictable ways by abusers.
Some states are trying to effectively criminalize miscarriage.
Some states are banning medication abortions.
“States’ rights” narratives are already being discarded as Republicans push for a nationwide abortion ban.
And Clarence Thomas and Marsha Blackburn, among others, have made clear that all other privacy rights are in the crosshairs, including contraception and LGBTQ rights.
Of course, abortion rights advocates haven’t been taking this passively. Blue states have been passing laws to protect abortion access, including for those coming from out of state. States that allow direct referendums have had voters consistently support abortion rights, even in red states like Kansas and Kentucky. Ohio looks to be the next battleground, while the gerrymandered Republican legislature scrambles to take the issue out of voters’ hands.
Beyond all the horror stories that make the news, there are the smaller tragedies of babies born to parents who don’t want or aren’t able to care for them.
I highly recommend Jessica Valenti’s Abortion Every Day, where she tracks legislation and activism on abortion across the country.
As always, this diary is a group effort. Thanks to mettle fatigue, Angmar, ramara, SandraLLAP, and the WOW crew for links and discussion.
Reproductive Rights:
On Tuesday Joy Reid had a special show with Kamala Harris and others involved in the fight for abortion rights.
The last anti-abortion Democrat in the Virginia state senate, Joe Morrissey, lost this week’s primary to the proudly pro-choice Lashecse Aird.
The pilots of Elevated Access, a nonprofit, fly women who need abortions to states where it’s allowed.
Violence:
It seems like every week there’s another heinous story about the London Metropolitan Police. A serving Met officer has now been accused of raping a woman on his stag night [bachelor party].
In a prison riot in Honduras, women gang members massacred 46 other women inmates. [Warning, story is graphic.]
After 62 years, the oldest case at the National Center for Missing & Exploited children has been identified: a murdered 4-year-old girl who was buried as “Little Miss Nobody” was proven by DNA testing to be Sharon Lee Gallegos, who disappeared in 1960.
Researchers analyzed 3.7 million posts on an incel forum, and concluded the posters were extremely racist and misogynist. Really, any one of their posts is enough to make that obvious, and I hope the researchers had a copious supply of brain bleach.
Andrew Tate was indicted for rape and human trafficking in Romania, along with his brother Tristan and two women associates.
Truck driver Elizabeth Johnson, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, has a vivid message on the side of her truck about missing and murdered indigenous women: Invisible No More.
Workplace:
June 28th, join the livestream on gender equity in farming.
Women mariners harassed and assaulted at sea are breaking their silence.
Nearly 80% of women’s jobs could be disrupted by AI.
Women in leadership face ageism at every age.
Media:
Sylvia Villagran has an EGOT — not for performing, but for announcing the Emmys, Grammys, Oscars, and Tonys. She is the third woman, and first Latina, to announce the Oscars.
Religion:
The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant group in the United States, overwhelmingly voted to expel two congregations with women pastors, and announced plans to make churches’ membership contingent on prohibiting women pastors. This article argues that this has less to do with scripture than with maintaining the SBC’s brand.
Sister Nathalie Bequart, the first female undersecretary at the Vatican's Synod of Bishops, is pushing for greater decision-making roles for women in the church, with some support from Pope Francis.
Uncategorizable:
The absurdly misnamed Moms for Liberty is pushing for book bans on LGBTQ+ content (and they always seem to find something “inappropriate” about BIPOC authors as well). Apparently one thing the DID find appropriate was quoting Hitler on the front page of their Indiana chapter’s newsletter.