Yes, They Are Coming for Your Birth Control

[LymphocyteLover]

Gosse was appalled. The memo’s ostensible purpose was to provide clarity to staff so they wouldn’t run afoul of state law, but to Gosse, it had the opposite effect. It came off “not as a friendly warning from your university legal team, but actually a kind of slap in the face,” she says. It felt like a threat—don’t say the a-word, or else—wrapped up in a package of legalese. At the time, Gosse was conducting research on the artist Edward Kienholz, whose portfolio includes two prominent sculptural installations about abortion. She worried continuing to discuss abortion and contraception—even in art history class—would make her vulnerable to prosecution.


It was hard not to be confused by the university’s memo. Did mentioning the location of the nearest Planned Parenthood clinic—about 15 minutes across the state border in Pullman, Washington—constitute “promotion”? Would resident advisors be jailed for telling a student that Plan B was available at Walmart? Were condoms and birth control pills now contraband? Those questions seemed dystopian and absurd, and yet, this is our new post-Roe v. Wade reality.

Would resident advisors be jailed for telling a student that Plan B was available at Walmart? Were condoms and birth control pills now contraband?” The memo was sent three months after the Supreme Court issued its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which a year ago on June 24, 2022, overturned Roe v. Wade. At the time, 26 states, including Idaho, had trigger bans or other legislation proposed or in place to restrict abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Now, after accomplishing its long-held dream of ending Roe, the antiabortion movement has turned its focus to a new target: birth control, with several states introducing legislation that could restrict or outlaw certain forms. If left unopposed, it is clear there are some politicians, judges, and activists who would not only deny people the ability to end unwanted pregnancies, but also the ability to prevent pregnancies in the first place.

https://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a44290204/birth-control-laws-abortion-2023/

[Skittles]

1. who couldn't see this coming?

except the stupid assholes who didn't vote for Hillary

[Hekate]

35. They need an ass-kicking

[2naSalit]

2. Well...

When the state religion, I mean legislature mandates that they go forth and multiply in mass quantities you end up with them not liking it when people can make the choices they need to make. The religion rules the state there, always has.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

3. Evangelical religious sects are terrorist organizations.

[Upthevibe]

27. Hermit-The-Prog.......

Watch the documentary, "Shiny Happy People" about the Duggar family and their cult, IBLP (Institute in Basic Life Principles). These people are so effed up...

[BeckyDem]

4. Better believe it. n/t

[lark]

5. It's all part of their very long term plan.

Contraception, gay marriage, and free public education are next on the block and probably in that order. Of course, there's also Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security that they plan to stop.

[twodogsbarking]

6. From an early age in Catholic School I have stated that some day nuns will run the country.

I don't think I missed by much.

[maxrandb]

9. I went to 12 years of catholic school in the 60's and 70's

We had sex education starting around 5TH Grade.

Hell, we even learned about evolution.

Had a great nun, Sister "Frannie-May" who taught science. She had a great way of explaining how the earth could be billions of years old, and still keep in biblical standards.

She simply would say; "what is a day to God? For all we know, a day to God could be 5 billions years".

[riversedge]

7. yes. the Repugs will try-to take away birth control

[peppertree]

22. For others - but for themselves (and their daughters), it's always be at their fingertips

The cruelty is a big part of the fun.

[SunSeeker]

8. Fucking insane. Right when birth control is more important that ever, with all these abortion bans.

I really hope all this bites Republicans in the ass in 2024.

[Ligyron]

13. This could be the trigger that eventually buries the RW GOP and their idiotic dogma.

Most people don't vote and most of those probably don't support what the SCOTUS and GOP are selling.

Getting a large chunk of them registered and to the polls could spell doom for the GQP and evangelical's efforts to rewrite history and cram their policies and beliefs down our throats.

[Rebl2]

23. You would

think they would realize a lot of republican women take birth control and they will be angry. I also hope this kind of talk bites Republican at the polls.

[Scalded Nun]

10. Get women pregnant, keep women pregnant. Big part of their plan for control of women.

Deny education, remove books, control information flow, early-age grooming for life's purpose without any silly interruptions or distractions. They just know what is best for us all.

This is where they want us all to be.

[Hekate]

36. Add the shaming of women who apply for govt assistance for their brood

[Farmer-Rick]

11. Most all religions try to control who, what, when and where

People may have sex. Control a population's access to sex and you control their entire lives.

Religion is just another tool for the filthy rich to control you.

"Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet. Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."
Napoleon Bonaparte

[Lonestarblue]

12. Making birth control and all forms of abortion illegal is in sight for red state legislatures.

They won’t do it before 2024 for fear of voter reprisals, but they will do it. The other extremely dangerous goal is to declare fetal personhood, giving a fetus at conception the full rights of a living person and having more importance than the life of the woman. The legal nightmare of fetal personhood is fraught with unimaginable horrific results for women, including death. Since the religious right doesn’t truly believe that miscarriages are normal because women must do something to cause them, women who suffer a miscarriage could be charged with murder as if the fetus were a real, live person. The religious right has billions of dollars to spend to achieve these goals. Given the Supreme Court’s rulings to privilege all things the white evangelical crowd wants, I no longer believe that these things will not happen.

[Captain Zero]

16. "religious right has billions of dollars to spend to achieve these goals." yup.

So where will they take Alito fishing, and how many more of Uncle Thomas's family members will be living rent free?

[Hotler]

14. They The Christians. America's Taliban. nt

[ashredux]

15. They want more white babies.... That's what the plan is

[Upthevibe]

28. ashredux......

It's quite confusing....All groups will increase if birth control is taken away...

[ashredux]

29. I never gave them credit for cognitive skills. But listen to the rhetoric. It tells all.

[Butterflylady]

17. Do they really recognize how many republican women use birth control?

And how many republican husbands want their wives on birth control?

Yep that's the sure way to get them to vote for republicans. ( sarcasm)

[Wounded Bear]

18. Yep! All part of the master plan from the Talibangelists...nt

[jaxexpat]

19. Thus the Republicans left the baton in plain sight.

We need only to pick it up and it will automatically beat them. We'll never have to lift a finger, just hold it tight. The tighter our grip, the greater their ownership.

[sarchasm]

20. KnR!

[CrispyQ]

21. Is the Nineteenth safe?

There's already been talk in some extreme far right groups that it should go.

[Warpy]

24. That is absolutely insane.

It's worse than what was available in the 1950s, condom machines in men's rooms (but not women's bathrooms, go figure) and barrier methods for women that just plain didn't work unless used with a spermicide, and I don't know anything that would kill the mood faster than the reek of Ortho-Glynol, something that is right now making women my age cringe in recognition as they read it.

It looks like there needs to be a free speech lawsuit against that oh-so-friendly university legal team.

Fuck that noise, college women are old enough to know about Plan B, condoms, IUDs, and birth control pills.

[Blue Owl]

25. K&R

[calimary]

26. Sounds like there's an "Underground Railroad" somewhere in our future.

But this one would involve birth control and pregnancy termination.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

31. My wife and I just watched the movie "Harriet"...

I didn't pay any attention when I popped the dvd in -- she just said, "You'll like it". Sometime in the run to freedom, it dawned on me, "OMG it's THAT 'Harriet'! She's THE Conductor!" My wife just cackled at me.

We may need people that fierce, again.

[Hekate]

37. Check out The Brigid Alliance. They help with travel, expenses, child care...

https://brigidalliance.org/

Also look into Planned Parenthood clinics along the borders — Planned Parenthood-Imperial Valley Health Center in California is swamped with people travelling from other states, and so many of them are in dire need.
The LA Times didn’t give me a link, but Google gave me the whole article I remembered:
A California desert town has long been an abortion refuge for Arizona and Mexico. Now it’s overwhelmed. July 20, 2022

People are just terrified of being found out. One woman wanted to know if there was any way her cell phone records could be wiped…

[malthaussen]

30. "Sanctioned sex only!" I guess...

... except for the rich and powerful, of course.

-- Mal

[jmowreader]

32. Every good dystopian work of fiction has a sexual component

1984: sex was to be “barely endured as a duty to the party.”

Animal Farm: all the sows were expected to submit to the ruling pigs, primarily Napoleon.

Brave New World: pregnancy not allowed and monogamous relationships highly discouraged. Children expected to start screwing their brains out as soon as they are physically capable of the deed.

Demolition Man: Cocteau decided real sex was responsible for the downfall of society and banned it. It was replaced by “vir-sex” in which a device would electronically transmit your sexual thoughts to a partner.

The Handmaid’s Tale: to try to solve the population problem women who had previously had children were forced into a weird sexual slavery where they were raped in front of the men’s wives.

21st Century American Christianity: the only thing sex is to be used for is producing children who will be converted to Christianity as soon as they can talk, so anything that can prevent or end a pregnancy is to be banned.

Just so you know: in the society Christians seem to love more than any other, namely Romania under Ceausescu, vaginal intercourse became the least popular sex act.

[keep_left]

33. Last September, GA Gov Brian Kemp was overheard stating that he was willing to ban Plan B...

...and other contraceptives. This occurred at a U of GA College Republicans event and was reported by the "Heartland Signal" blog. What was surprising about Kemp's response was his nonchalant attitude: "depending on where the legislatures are...you could take up pretty much anything".

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217159966

This is the end result of more than forty years of "co-belligerency" between radtrad Catholics and America's nominally Protestant ruling class. Over the years, the radtrads have worn down the resistance of the Protestant churches to truly radical, extreme ideology, like a total legal ban on contraception. This was easiest with the fundamentalist nondenominational Protestants as well as the Southern Baptists, whose ideas were never that far from radtradism to start with. So in recent years you have seen Albert Mohler, one of the major leaders of the Southern Baptists, attacking the "contraceptive mentality"; that expression is a favorite thought-terminating cliché among radtrad Catholics.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217159966#post12

[Hekate]

34. Yes. I knew this a long time ago, but Clarence Thomas gave the big tip-off in his comment on Dobbs

Last edited Thu Jul 6, 2023, 04:18 PM - Edit history (1)

He said the Court would have to revisit other decisions based on privacy, such as Griswold (contraception for married couples) and Obergefell (gay marriage) .

The reason I already knew contraception was in danger was because the forced-birth fanatics started redefining all the best contraceptives as abortifacients 20+ years ago. They lie — they’ll lie about anything to do with women having a say over their own bodies.

[appalachiablue]

38. K/R Thanks for posting.