I think a lot of the time abortion is a painful decision made with the full support of the person who “caused” it. A lot of the point here is that abortion is not just a girl trying to cover up the side effects of a one night stand, or the result of some asshole taking advantage of her.
And every pro‐choice woman I know in Texas is married to a pro-choice man. The whole Lysistrata approach is what women do when they have no legitimate power. It’s a sort of “we don’t need no women’s lib. A smart woman can get anything she wants, if she plays her cards right” sort of strategy.
I know this keeps getting brought up as a sort of joke, but “women have the power of the pussy” is an incredibly toxic idea that motivates a lot of misogynistic rage and perpetuates a lot of negative stereotypes.
@Dung_Beetle is referring to a response given by Abbott in a press conference yesterday to a question about how the law would affect rape survivors. He said that, “Rape is a crime, and Texas will work tirelessly to make sure that we eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas by aggressively going out and arresting them and prosecuting them and getting them off the streets.”
Such a stupid answer on so many levels, beginning with the whole premise that there’s a bunch of rapists hanging out “on the streets” that he’s apparently had the power to eliminate this whole time but has chosen not to.
I believe they don’t like women enjoying sex. I am convinced the thing Trump most likes about sex is the humiliation of the women who did not consent. If they sue for rape and fail, much the better: it adds insult to injury.
We now have what are effectively seven or eight “Screw Greg Abbott” threads scattered across the board, it can be hard to know where to post about his latest outrage.
You want to stop this law? Have NY pass a law saying that you can sue your neighbor for owning a gun. Or CA could allow you to sue somebody for operating an internal combustion engine. How about being able to sue someone if you don’t like how they voted.
Almost every time I see someone talk about ways to stop this law, someone brings up some blue state passing a similar law about guns. The difference is, of course, that blue states don’t actually want to ban gun ownership, but red states actually do want to ban abortion. There has to be a better example to use.
Texas Republicans don’t give a shit if New York uses the same strategy to ban guns. And the Supreme Court is going to rule on the Texas law based on the merits regardless of what any other states do. I don’t think the solution here is for more states to pass shitty laws.
Sure, a lot of the time it is. And quite often it’s not, it’s just a normal procedure involved with women’s healthcare and I think it’s a big mistake to frame it as always being a painful decision fraught with emotion. And I think there are enough women around willing to make a point about it–I think it’s time we stop seeing abortion as some shameful secret that never gets talked about and maybe there are some women who feel the same way who might just decide to take it one step further, hence the “unintended consequences” part of this ill conceived law. Yes, phrasing.
The Lysistrata angle isn’t one I’d expect from women in committed relationships with feminist allies, but for those late night hookups with casual partners, telling the men there will be no penises going into vaginas due to the possibility of unintended consequences might just spread the chilling effect around a bit and having a shit ton of men protesting outside the legislature might actually draw some attention.
The thing is, this is a terrorist tactic designed to show women their place and the sooner it is made explicitly clear that the women know this and are turning the tables the better. Unless, of course, the women of Texas are actually fine with this bullshit law and don’t WANT to make waves and change things, in which case then fine, they all have what they want. I’m all for letting people stew in their own pots. State’s rights I guess.
I agree. One of the earlier posts was suggesting a general strike by women, which I think would be more effective. Anyone know what percentage of women in Texas are pro-choice?
Are OB/GYN’s even going to be willing to practice in Texas?
Every patient is a chance that an ex, a family member, or even just the barista at Starbucks who claims to have overheard a conversation decides to sue under this law.
Hell, a disgruntled patient could sue, falsely claiming that the doctor told her if she ever got “in trouble,” it could be taken care of in the office, with no one ever even knowing, and be billed to insurance as something else.
Even a doctor who prevailed in court would probably be uninsurable afterwards, at least in Texas. After a few of those, OB/Gyns might be entirely uninsurable in the state of Texas. Or at least have to pay such high rates that only the highest 20% or so of earners in Texas could afford pre-natal care.
Just so the general population of workers could still afford insurance, employers would make pre-natal care a separate service, like vision and dental, that people had to opt into, with huge extra premiums for those who did. People who wanted to have a baby in a calendar year might be paying half their salary to insurance.
Roe v. Wade has always been such a fragile thing. The legal reasoning, grounding the right to abortion in the amorphous concept of “privacy,” which in turn was found in the penumbra, i.e. not actually stated explicitly anywhere in the Constitution, seemed almost as much of a stretch as finding the right to personal firearms in the Second Amendment. It mostly stood the test of time because precedent is powerful, and because not enough people really, truly wanted it gone. And as long as it has stood, women have been free to focus on other struggles. But if it falls, I anticipate–I hope–it will galvanize women in a way the GOP never saw coming. And I hope they never recover.
If the man had not had sex with the woman in question she would not have become pregnant and there would be no discussion of abortion - men are 50% of what goes into a conception. Our society still does not hold men equally responsible for the human results of sex.
Heck, if the woman doesn’t get an abortion he’s on the hook for 18 years of child support in a lot (most?) states. Why shouldn’t he have to pay half of any abortion, too?
There is a concept in law call proximate cause. What you describe is so far removed from the decision to have an abortion as to make it not a cause at all.
Seeing as how having the abortion is entirely the woman’s choice–the father cannot force or veto an abortion—holding him liable is simply factually false in addition to not being a proximate cause.
You might as well sue the friend that introduced the couple, or the friend’s mother for giving birth because but for those acts, they wouldn’t have had sex, and abortion wouldn’t be on the table.