My black and blue computer chair is quite comfy. I sit in it each day to read the news. It’s where I write the majority of the things that come tumbling out of my brain. It’s an old comfort, full of tears where cat claws have made their mark. The chair has served me well for nearly a decade.
For the past month, however, I have sat down in my trusty chair, rested my fingers on my keyboard, and…I…just…can’t. There are things in my head that want to come out, but after reading the news, I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut. I feel like I did when I was a little girl. A major right was taken away from me on June 24, 2022. Every day since the Dobbs decision, there has been a story of someone who wants to further restrict my rights and all those memories come rushing back. I can’t switch it off. My brain still tries to protect me when something triggers me, even if it’s only a headline.
Today, I’d like to take you through the last 36 hours of my news feed and offer a solution, vote.
According to The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) the online incel movement is getting more violent and extreme. A report put out by the CCDH Quant Lab analyzed more than 1 million posts showing a rise in advocacy of rape, mass killings.
According to the CCDH analysis, members of the forum post about rape every 29 minutes, and more than 89 percent of posters support rape and say it’s acceptable. The CCDH analysis also found that posters on the forum are seeking to normalize child rape. More than a quarter of members of the forum have posted pedophilia keywords, the analysis found, and more than half of the members of the forum support pedophilia.
The forum also changed its rules this year to accommodate what appears to be a trend toward normalizing rape of younger victims, according to the report. The forum previously implored users not to “sexualize minors in any way, shape or form,” but in March changed that language to “do not sexualize prepubescent minors in any way, shape, or form.”
The report also cited content that reflected the trend toward pedophilia, noting that a majority of commenters voiced support for a post that read, “As an incel, there is literally no reason to be against pedophilia.” Another thread started by a regular user who had posted more than 7,000 times to the forum contained an image of a 12-year-old child with the comment “who in their right mind would prefer a 22 year old [woman] to this?”
You can read the Washington Post breakdown or the study at the CCDH website.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said the state’s strict abortion law would eliminate all rapists. Clinics in Texas are reporting the number of rape cases has been consistently high. The clinics continue to struggle to provide services to rape victims. No one with a brain ever thought he was going to eliminate rape. Women are being overly traumatized by this law.
The Satanic Temple has filed a federal lawsuit challenging Indiana’s near-total abortion ban.
Women’s rights were set back 158 years when a judge allowed Arizona’s 1864 anti-abortion law to take effect. The law was drafted 48 years before Arizona was a state. It was updated in 1901. Girls are going to die. Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich celebrated. Yeah, another fucking republican.
“We applaud the court for upholding the will of the legislature and providing clarity and uniformity on this important issue,” he said.
The recently upheld law that originated from 1863 mandates a two- to five-year prison sentence for anyone who helps a woman obtain an abortion.
“If this decision stands, health care providers would face imprisonment of up to five years for fulfilling their duty of care; survivors of rape and incest would be forced to bear the children of their assaulters; and women with medical conditions would face dire health risks,”
Ms Jean-Pierre said that the “backwards decision exemplifies the disturbing trend across the country of Republican officials at the local and national level dead-set on stripping women of their rights, including through Senator Graham’s proposed national abortion ban,” referring to South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham’s recent proposal to outlaw abortion nationwide at 15 weeks.
More than a dozen states have effectively outlawed all abortions, with limited exceptions, in recent months. As many as 26 states are expected to advance bans or severe restrictions on abortion care without constitutional protections in place under Roe.
A fertility doctor in Texas has spoken out about how bad it has gotten there.
In short, women no longer have the full access to modern American medical care they once had. We have accepted in this society a paternalistic approach to female healthcare, limiting their resources to what was available decades ago, or occurs in third world countries.
This is the new America, the land where politicians and attorneys get to practice medicine, dictating who gets to be a parent, avert catastrophic bleeding or organ loss, the epidemiology of a virus and immunogenicity of a vaccine.
The entire article is devastating.
An Oregon rape victim was jailed to make sure she appeared in court as a material witness to testify against her rapist. She’s 20 years old. I’m not even going to try to explain how this made me feel because I don’t need the flashback again. I don’t care if the district attorney wants an easy win. This is cruel and inhumane.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed one of the most restricted abortion laws in 2019. He’s now been caught on tape saying he wants to ban contraception.
Karl Rove said the Texas’ abortion law is “too extremist” and will be “a real problem for Republicans in the legislature.” Good. I hope every damned republican loses in November.
I say it’s too strict in 22 states. The republicans are shouting every day about how great it is to have rape babies, how I’m a murderer, how it doesn’t matter that a 10-year old was raped. She just better have that baby. No one is lining up to take care of them. Are any of you prepared for the increase in mental illness this will create? Are any of you prepared for the increase to social services this will create? How about the increase in suicides? Do you really know what you’re getting yourselves into when you vote republican?
Are you happy with women like me being retraumatized, being forced to think about things done to her against her will? Are you happy with 14 year old versions of me in 2022 and beyond committing suicide? This is where we are headed.
Also, Karl Rove created this bullshit.
Rove oversaw Bush’s re-election campaign.… This was not simply about winning elections. It represented a far more grandiose vision—the forging of a historic re-alignment of America’s political landscape, the transformation of America into effectively a one-party state.
“The president has said he does not want a lonely victory,” said Christine Iverson, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. “We really have an opportunity here to make this a permanent majority.”
They have been telling you this is what they want for decades. Are you going to listen now or are you satisfied with women being chattel, subject to the whims of old, white men?
Indiana is still fighting. Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is educating people on the idiotic phrase “fetal heartbeats.” We should be vocal, too.
Biden said he’d codify Roe if we elect more Democrats. Let’s do that and then let’s hold him accountable for it.
As for my religious trauma in relation to abortion, I’ll let Ana Kasparian reiterate what I already think. She said it better than I ever could.
I’m doing all the right things to heal from my trauma. It’s difficult to do when old, out of touch, uneducated about female anatomy, white men and ignorant, blinded by religion women control the narrative. I’ve been voting against these sort of people my entire life. I’m not giving up, but it’s getting harder every day, especially when I feel like I’m spitting in the wind. On those hard days, I sit back with a cup of tea in my black and blue computer chair. It’s made it so far with me and I can keep going a little while longer. I have to.
Bodily autonomy is a human right. I continue to fight for the people I will never meet. I continue to fight for the women I do know. I fight for the women of child-bearing years who don’t want children. I fight for the victims and survivors, regardless of age. I fight for anyone who wants an abortion. I don’t care their reason. My vote in November is for all of them.
I will aid and abet abortion.