Jessica Valenti: The Arizona Tipping Point

[Nevilledog]

https://jessica.substack.com/p/the-arizona-tipping-point

Sometimes it’s hard to know which bit of abortion news will take off and infuriate the country. When Kate Cox’s story sparked national outrage, for example, I wondered why the dozens of other women with similar experiences didn’t garner the same attention. This week, it’s the Arizona Supreme Court decision enforcing an 1864 ban that’s getting wall-to-wall coverage in spite of other, similar, rulings.

So why this ban, why this story? After all, there’s a new horror to choose from daily.

In the same week that Arizona’s Supreme Court came down with their ruling, the Tennessee Senate passed a bill that makes it illegal to give a teenager information about abortion, Virginia’s governor vetoed legislation that would have prevented the extradition of abortion providers and patients, and the Supreme Court geared up for a case that will determine whether or not states can deny women life-saving abortions.

We’re living in a country where it’s now business as usual for pilots to secretly fly women out of state, so they can get the care that they need, and for abortion advocates to risk years in prison to make sure that women and children aren’t forced into pregnancy.

Multiple states are advancing bills that require public schools to include anti-abortion videos in science classes—indoctrination meant to put a dent in young people’s overwhelming support for abortion rights—while Republicans across the country try to kill ballot measure efforts so voters can’t have a direct say on the issue.

*snip*

[Irish_Dem]

1. I think the dredging up a 160 year old law to subjugate women

was the straw that broke the camel's back.

[Journeyman]

2. Yes, there's something about utilizing a bill to control women which women were not allowed a voice about . . .

which rankles at a certain visceral level, well beyond the usual intellectual and moral outrage.

[Irish_Dem]

4. Yes using such an old law, before women could vote, AZ was not even a state.

A law used to subjugate women, take away their rights and make them second class citizens.

It is outrageous in the United States of American in the year 2024.

I hope women are getting really angry and will start protesting.

[Cha]

3. "And that's the thing that Democrats would do well to remember as we close in on November:"

And that’s the thing that Democrats would do well to remember as we close in on November: The danger abortion bans pose to women’s health and lives makes us afraid, but what makes us furious is the affront to our humanity.

It’s that anger that politicians campaigning on abortion rights need to tap into. The foremost feeling driving American women on abortion rights isn’t fear—it’s humiliation. It is demeaning, incredibly so, to watch as statehouses full of men decide that women were better off in a time when we had no choices, about anything.

If Democrats want to motivate women, they should talk less about how dangerous abortion bans are, and more about what that danger means: that to Republicans, our lives don’t matter. Instead of talking about how women are losing their rights, remind voters why that is: because Republicans don’t want women to have any.

Thank you and Well Done Jessica Valenti!

[BComplex]

5. Those "videos" are what garnered support from all the evangelical churches to rail against abortion.

They started with it back in the '70's. These videos show electrical stimulus applied to an embryo to make it look like a small child is being electrocuted, and other such mind blowing film tricks. It's enough to shock even the most hardened pro-choice activist. It's propaganda at its finest, its most insidious.