In certain states, now multiple physicians are required to sign off on medical documents as to "the nature of the medical emergency" so as to reduce legal liability (pre-eclampsa, ectopic pregnancies, etc.) and many physicians are afraid to complain for fear of being fired. Increasingly women are being brought into ER's either septic or very ill raising their odds of death b/c proactive treatment was denied them. Surely this goes against religious edicts to "save the life of the mother" as Judaism dictates? This can't go on!
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/20/us/abortion-save-mothers-life.html
@laura-f, I can relate to a lot of what you shared about your childhood. When I married at 25, a part of me felt relieved that my husband couldn't have children. It was an emotionally abusive (and fortunately, short-lived) marriage, which was a big part of the reason for my relief. In addition, I was put in a parental role as a young child, so I felt that I had already done the whole parenting thing and was plumb tuckered out!
At the time of my marriage I also intuitively knew that I was not psychologically equipped to raise a child. I could barely handle my own life, let alone be a responsible parent. Too much unresolved trauma. After years of therapy I eventually did feel ready in my late 30's to become a mom. But I was single and had no interest in choosing to raise a child alone. I did remarry at 45 and at that point, neither of us had any interest in starting a family.
I do have my moments of sadness over not having children -- I have a lot to give and believe I would have been a great mom in my later years. Although I sometimes miss the experience of being a parent and the joy that can bring, I have no regrets. What was most important to me was having autonomy -- that freedom and ability to choose what was best for me and decide where I wanted my life to go.
A pregnant Texas woman driving alone in an HOV lane told the police officer that her unborn baby counts as a passenger. She was ticketed and is contesting it.
I am currently trying to figure out how freaked out I should be if my just married Texas daughter suddenly finds herself pregnant .
You know what? Everything will be OK. Your daughter will, I believe, have enough support and resources to get around any crazy Texas laws if it becomes necessary. And there is NO WAY the US is going to end up anywhere close to a Gilead. Women in this country are powerful, educated, and independent and have plenty enough support from sane men. We have taken our power and will not give it back. It will not happen. That, I firmly believe.
About being brought up in abusive environments and having children: My mother was certainly not the worst, but she leans narcissistic and never seemed to have much interest in how her children really felt about anything. Anything we complained about must have been "our fault". And as a middle child I got the role of family scapegoat.
But I knew I had a karmic mission to have a child. I used my mom as a model of "What Not To Do". And I know that's one reason my kid grew up miraculously well-adjusted. My little sister, on the other hand, modeled my mother. Her kids are lovely, successful people but they are burdened with depression and anxiety issues , just as I am.
Oh how I relate to you.
Had I become a mother much younger, I don't think it would have worked out as well. I was 45 when I met my daughter and I brought her home when I was 47 years old so I was no youngster! By then I had done everything I wanted to: Explored a lot, travelled a lot, had many adventures, done the academic thing, done the romance/engagement thing multiple times....I was looking for a brand new adventure and this was it.
I, also, overcame a difficult upbringing. Don't like to talk about it much but those are the plain facts. I don't think that my mother ever wanted (or even liked!) children and deeply resented all of us kids -- but did so in order to get married. We were the burdensome "price" she paid in order to find a husband. In the 1950's having children was the norm. Narcissism, possible borderline traits were there but remained undiagnosed and we were her "victims" behind closed doors. Very early on, I decided to take all the painful "lessons" (via abuse) I experienced throughout my childhood and use them in a positive way one day to help another soul. I wanted to be NOTHING like my mother. Consequently, becoming a mother has always been just as much a spiritual act to me as a physical or emotional one. As much as I knew deep down that I was unloved, unwanted and resented when young, so my daughter stands up straight and proud and knows that, deep down, she is loved, respected and celebrated by me. I've made sure of that. She went through a rough beginning in life too. Ending up in that overseas orphanage was no accident. I believe our paths were destined to cross. And I believe that I went through such an abusive and chaotic upbringing in order to learn and to grow ... and to use those lessons to then help at least ONE other soul while in this incarnation.
@ana @isabel
I frequently used "WWMD" - What Would Mother Do? when faced with a child-rearing conundrum. And then I would do the opposite - it really worked very well.
My daughter gets regular treatment for her issues, and her psychiatrist informed me a long time ago that nothing I did was the cause of her issues - it was 99% genetic combined with 1% of adoption trauma (even though she was only 5 months old when we got her and bonded to us immediately).
Glad to say I broke the chain.
Laura,
Yes you broke the chain. It is a tremendous achievement (and deliberate choice) not to pass on that cycle of abuse and trauma to the next generation. I always figured: "If I do NOTHING ELSE in this life, I'm going to be a good mother one day". Sounds like you very much have accomplished that. You should be very proud....
This is probably an obvious fact to everyone but, in terms of "forced pregnancies", as we can see a significant number of people on this website experienced abusive upbringings. Aside from all the medical considerations and the need for bodily autonomy, forcing women to give birth when they don't want to will inevitably turn their children into likely abuse victims upon birth. Raising even one child is a LONG, HARD road and not for the faint-hearted. So not only is the SC condemning women to a lifestyle they don't want, they are condemning a whole future generation of children to potential victimhood. They are "saving their lives" through outlawing abortion then condemning them to a lifetime of pain. Makes no sense,
@triciact I just straight up tell people about my childhood trauma as to why I don't want kids...it usually shuts them up and is pretty funny because they don't know what to say to it...I've had years of therapy and am a therapist myself though, so I've healed it. I know not everyone is at that healing space yet where they could do that
A Roman Catholic priest in Poland is taking practical steps in his "war against abortion" by helping out single mothers who are at a crossroads in their abortion decision by offering concrete help to the mother and baby AFTER the child is born. Abortion has been banned in Poland for nearly 30 years...but this does not stop women from seeking out the procedure, often b/c they are in desperate circumstances (economic, abusive relationship, etc.). The Polish government does nothing to assist them ...but this priest has stepped up to the challenge by offering a creative solution: "Little Feet", a shelter for pregnant single women and their babies offering them free food, shelter and support. Perhaps this can become a model for the US?
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/30/world/europe/poland-abortion-ban-single-mothers.html
Unbeleivable, but true- news from Talibama:
(I am putting this in the Roe v Wade thread, bc there is a connection here, somewhere, about how the so-called pro-life people are pro-death, in so many ways, and how those attitudes are reflected in their treatment of womenfolk)
from The Guardian- Female journalist told skirt too short when reporting on Alabama execution
One journalist reporting on the lethal injection was told her skirt was too short and another said she had a full-body inspection
Last Thursday night, the state of Alabama took three hours to find a vein in Joe Nathan James Jr through which officials could pump lethal injection drugs and execute him, a process that the department of corrections insisted was “nothing out of the ordinary”.
Alabama appears to specialize in its extraordinary sense of the ordinary, particularly when it comes to the death penalty. It has now emerged that, during that execution, prison officials subjected female reporters who came as witnesses to the proceeding to a clothing inspection, attempting to bar one woman from the death chamber on grounds that her skirt was too short.
Ivana Hrynkiw, a journalist for Alabama’s pre-eminent news outlet AL.com, recounted how she was pulled aside by a prison official and told that her skirt was too diminutive to meet regulations. “I tried to pull my skirt to my hips to make the skirt longer, but was told it was still not appropriate,” she recounted on Twitter.
The paradox that the state went to such lengths to uphold what it regards as propriety in clothing even as it prepared to kill a man appears to have been lost on the department of corrections. Officials also subjected an Associated Press reporter, Kim Chandler, to a full-body inspection, making her stand to have the length of her clothing checked. Chandler said that such an indignity had never happened to her before in the many times she had covered executions since 2002.
^that story about the reporter who was told her dress was too short to witness an execution reminded me about something that happened to my sister. She was in high school in the late 60s, and one day the principal called her into his office. He pulled out a measuring tape and measured her miniskirt. He said it was too short, and she had to choose between being expelled, or taking a spanking. She told him "I have a big Chemistry exam in ten minutes, so we better go with the whipping." (She really thought he was bluffing.)
But he surprised her, and told her to bend over, as he pulled a leather strap out from his desk. And then she surprised him, by turning around and snatching the strap from his raised hand. She then proceeded to beat the pee out of the old perv. Then she walked down the hall to her Chemistry class and took her exam.
The principal never called the police (or an ambulance), probably bc it would have been too much for his fragile masculinity to bear. He also never bothered my sister again. She is a doctor now.
I am hopeful that this November, we will be delivering some beatdowns to those who want to take away our rights. Not literal beatings, of course, but some days i would feel ok about that, too, lol.
@mtgal99 my sister was 6 feet tall by the time she was in 5th grade, and she always had a reputation of being a bruiser- but she only beat up bullies. She also was the 1st female gas station attendant in our city (this was before self-serve gas pumps). She would be out there pumping gas in a bikini, with her 7 foot long Boa Constrictor snake in her hair. That snale went everywhere with her. The cars would line up around the block to get gas from her. She always made me so proud!
I have no words. That principle deserved that beating.
And the snake bikini gas pump thing...WOW!
May I ask what type of doctor she became?
What a presence!
Talibama, that is a perfect name.
What a disgraceful way to treat those female reporters. Disgusting and chilling.
@lovendures an Animal Doctor. If your snake gets the sniffles, go see my sis.
BREAKING:
Kansans resoundingly reject amendment aimed at restricting abortion rights
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — In a major victory for abortion rights, Kansas voters on Tuesday rejected an effort to strip away their state’s abortion protections, sending a decisive message about the issue’s popularity in the first political test since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.
The overwhelming support for abortion rights in a traditionally conservative state bolsters Democrats’ hopes that the historic Supreme Court ruling will animate their voters in an otherwise difficult election year for their party. The Kansas vote signals that abortion is an energizing issue that could affect turnout in the November midterm elections.
With 86 percent of the vote counted, 62 percent of voters wanted to maintain those abortion protections compared with 37 percent who wanted to remove them from the state constitution. Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab predicted that turnout for Tuesday’s primary election would exceed other contests in recent years, and possibly match that of the 2008 presidential election, when around 50 percent of the eligible voters cast ballots.
Wake up RepubliTHUGS and CONservatives! If the fact that Kansas of all states rejected a measure to allow Republicans to take away a woman's constitutional right to control her body, what more do you need to know? Oh, and it was an overwhelming majority of voters who turned it down (unless you are a Trumper and believe all elections you lose is the result of cheating). And, as if that wasn't enough, this happened during the PRIMARY, where young and democratic voters are not supposed to be as active.
Republicans, we are coming. But we aren't aiming for your guns. We are after your political power. Thanks to the Supreme Court, you can't blame the big bad federal government anymore. You will now be held accountable for the pain you have inflicted on the one group you should not have targeted. Basically almost every person with ovaries, as well as a plurality of good men, is against you on this issue. Good luck and hope you can swim, Republicans. The blue wave is coming to wash you away.