Jessica Valenti: Conservatives Want to End 'Exceptions' for Women's Lives

[Nevilledog]

https://jessica.substack.com/p/conservatives-want-to-end-exceptions

Most of the time, I enjoy making political predictions. This one, however, makes my stomach turn: Conservatives want to do away with ‘exceptions’ for women’s lives. In fact, they’ve been laying the groundwork to eradicate the exception since Roe was overturned—though I didn’t fully piece together the move until recently, when I saw a leading anti-abortion activist refer to life-saving abortions as ‘elective.’

The short version is that they’ve been strategically redefining ‘abortion’ across law, culture and medicine, while pushing the false claim that abortion is never necessary to save a person’s life. The end game is legislation that bans abortion in all cases, mandating that doctors only end life-threatening pregnancies using c-sections or induced vaginal birth, no matter the risk to the pregnant person.

I’ll explain in detail, but please know that like most anti-abortion strategies, this one is being rolled out quietly and incrementally. In the same way that Republicans won’t pass an outright ban on contraception—instead chipping away at access until birth control is impossible to get—the plan is to methodically eradicate the exception right under our noses.

Because the idea of eliminating life-saving abortions is so radical—who would suggest such a thing?—there’s a real risk that Americans won’t notice until it’s too late. The unthinkable-ness of their extremism is protecting them.

*snip*

[Irish_Dem]

1. Legal First Degree Murder of American women.

-Intent
-Planning
-Pre-meditation

[haele]

2. A C-Section or induced labor doesn't help when a woman is bleeding out already

From a miscarriage gone wrong. Or if she has blood pressure or heart conditions.

They are still killing women in the name of forced birth. To the ultra-right Christians, Incels, and Taliban types, "Motherhood" isn't really something to be revered, it's a pretty jail cell for the majority of otherwise useless females to keep them in their place since they're not part of the elite.
On edit, and it won't be long before those loud in public "pro baby" elite females who think they're above it all because they're professionals will find themselves shoved into social cells -just much more comfortable - than their more disposable sisters.
They'll find themselves being relegated to silenced "valuable house pet" status rather than barnyard breeding stock.

Haele

[peregrinus]

3. I don't get being against contraception

Unless this whole thing is being pushed by Catholics which it very much is considering the make up of the USSC

[Phoenix61]

10. It's about punishing women for having sex.

Then only women who should have sex are married women who are doing their wifely duty of procreating.

Sick little fucks ain’t they?

[valleyrogue]

25. And married women need to have sex on demand by their husbands.

Marital rape isn't even a concept with these people. They fully believe marriage for women is "implied consent."

[TomSlick]

11. A small group of evangelicals are opposed to contraception.

They see contraception as part of the broader "social revolution" of the 60s that allowed for "free sex." Some evangelicals see contraception as a violation of the admonition in Genesis to "be fruitful and multiply."

The bottom line is that some evangelicals see a woman's role in life as an incubator. The fact they are aligned with the Catholic Church causes no discomfort. The believe that even the Pope is right every now and then.

[Ilsa]

20. I don't like "free sex" or "free love" either.

Maybe sometimes men should pay for it.

[LearnedHand]

26. Not sure where you get the "small" qualifier

It's NOT a small group and it's not just evangelicals. It's also the Catholic Church, Students for Life, and most of the Republican Party.

[TomSlick]

27. Small might not have been the right word but the great majority of evangelicals do not oppose contraception.

[uponit7771]

23. Heard one talk about sex is not for fun .... literally, this is the way these people think and don't want to say it...

... out loud cause they feel normies can't understand their weirdness

[milestogo]

28. Catholicism has done major damage to women.

[keithbvadu2]

4. Pro-life is a myth. It's a matter of control. To republicans, dead women are an acceptable loss.

[B.See]

7. EXACTLY. It's all just another maga lie. As were

the 'exceptions' and 'the states should decide.'

As they'll 'find out.'

[TomSlick]

13. You have to understand their bizarre beliefs.

First, without biblical support and contrary to the Jewish understanding of when "life" begins, they believe that a one-cell zygote is a human life. They cannot point to anything in the Bible that really supports their position, but it is "received truth." From there, it gets weirder.

They also believe that mere humans cannot make the election of one life over another. God can save the woman, or the zygote/fetus, or both - the opinions of medical science notwithstanding. If God chooses to save neither the woman nor the zygote/fetus, then such is God's will.

This is why medical decisions need to be made by doctors and not religious zealots.

[kimbutgar]

5. They want to go back to women being second class citizens

with no rights. I say F them!

If men had to deal with periods and pregnancies birth control and abortions would be on demand no exceptions.

[Ilsa]

21. If I was a teenage girl, I'd consider getting

my tubes tied. Miscarriages happen. Alot. Poor outcomes could happen too.

[Solly Mack]

6. ...

[Deuxcents]

8. They come up with all their destructive tactics in the dark

[Blue Full Moon]

9. The major religions hate women

The catholics thought women didn't have souls. They have back tracked and hid it. Religion is just some long dead man's ego or I'd still controlling the populace. Note not spirituality. There is a difference.

[markodochartaigh]

12. Another thing, the reason that you can

go to a hospital and receive at least enough care to stabilize your condition, without regard for your ability to pay, is EMTALA. EMTALA was passed in 1986, before that hospitals could, and did, refuse treatment to patients unable to pay.

I keep seeing EMTALA mentioned by the reich-wing in these cases where women are seeking pregnancy termination. Some Republican politicians have already called for ending EMTALA. I wouldn't be surprised if the Republicans are working towards a supreme court decision which wraps up an abortion ruling with ending EMTALA.

[LatteLady]

14. Valenti is THE go to voice on abortion and its enemies

If you are concerned about the health and safety of women, Valenti is the go to voice following all these issues every day. Her book is excellent.

[Lunabell]

15. Next on their list?

Repeal the 19th amendment. Then, the burka. Then, no right to drive. Go anywhere without a male relative. No formal education. It happened in Afghanistan. It can happen here.

[keithbvadu2]

16. They play doctor in the legislature

They play doctor in the legislature

[ancianita]

17. Women's bodies as reproductive vessels are detained in service of the state. Women have fewer rights than corpses.

-- NO person in America is allowed to use the bodies or organs of other people unless they have that person’s EXPRESS POSITIVE CONSENT, not even to save their own lives.

-- A man on the transplant list cannot force another man to donate him a kidney, even if the second man is the only match and the first will die without it.
That's bodily autonomy. That's Express Positive Consent. It’s settled law.

-- A doctor may not take blood or organs from a corpse -- a corpse, mind you -- without that person’s prior living consent to posthumous organ donation, even to save the life of a dying child.

The future: abortion banning extremists will continue to extend more rights to dead people than they will to the child bearing persons -- with heartbeats -- of 51% of the American population.

45's SCOTUS has stripped pregnant women of their 1st, 7th, 9th, 13th and 14th amendment rights.

[Montauk6]

18. Which, in a way, follows that conservatives accept wanting to end women's lives

[dlk]

19. Exceptions have always been a smokescreen

How does a women prove to a judge her life is in danger while she’s in a hospital with sepsis or bleeding out?

Republicans want to kill women. They are monsters.

[Linda ladeewolf]

22. I believe what they really want

Is to kill off women who can’t drop children like a cow. They want women who get pregnant and give birth easily, so they can raise large numbers of cheap workers and future soldiers. Once the children are born and get old enough, they can be used as cheap labor like in the old days, remember the shirt waist factory fire back in the early part of the last century. The one that gave unions all the power. To the oligarchs and to a dictator, children are really as expendable as any adult only they can’t fight back. You can find any number of accounts of children as young as four dying in other countries to this day, while working in mines, plantations, factories, children are exploited every single day all over the world to make money. Once they are an adult they can be useful for fighting wars and building those cities the rich want to live in and no ones seems to care if they survive then either. This is just my opinion.

[valleyrogue]

24. I wish she would quit calling these extremists and crackpots "conservatives."

They are no such thing. They don't see women as even human.

[milestogo]

29. REPUBLICANS HATE WOMEN.

They always have. They just aren't hiding it any more.