OT: "They're Coming for Griswold, and Obergefell, and Lawrence, and Loving"

[Lenona]

By Charles P. Pierce, political blogger, sportswriter, and author of four books,
including Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the
Free (2009).

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a39891780/supreme-court-roe-v-wade-samuel-alito-draft-opinion/

Excerpt:

"...What Alito’s reassurance does remind me of is the claim within the decision in Bush v. Gore that it was 'limited to the present circumstances.' As ProPublica pointed out two years ago, Bush v. Gore has been cited as precedent in nearly 200 cases. Even if I had a scintilla of trust in Alito’s reassurance...he wouldn’t be able to follow through on it if a state, say, wanted to outlaw gay marriage, or restrict the sale of contraception...

"Remarkably, this blockbuster came at the end of a day that began with a story in the Washington Post about how the anti-choice forces in Congress were already planning to propose a nationwide ban on abortion should the Republicans carry the midterm elections this fall. That’s for any of you who believe that Alito and the apparent majority are sincere about letting the states make up their own minds."

(end of excerpts)

And what conservatives don't want to acknowledge is that just as the abortion rate has gone down since 1990 (due mainly to better contraception usage - but ACCESS to contraception could easily shrink fast, pretty soon), so too has the number of adoptive parents. Why? Well, because of the advances in fertility research, for one thing. Adoption is expensive anyway - and hardly anyone wants even a foster baby, who may well have serious health problems. Why not gamble on a clinic instead?

As columnist Katha Pollitt said in 2014, if every woman with an unplanned pregnancy chose adoption:

"...there would be a surplus of babies in about five minutes. There are not as many people who want to adopt as adoption organizations want you to think there are..."

[Scott Brady]

> As columnist Katha Pollitt said in 2014, if every woman with an unplanned pregnancy chose adoption:

If only some organization existed to prevent unplanned pregnancies.

[Lenona]

On Friday, May 6, 2022 at 8:19:19 PM UTC-4, Scott Brady wrote:
> > As columnist Katha Pollitt said in 2014, if every woman with an unplanned pregnancy chose adoption:
> If only some organization existed to prevent unplanned pregnancies.

Is that a joke?

In the same 2014 interview, Pollitt said:

"I saw an op-ed by Dana Milbank, who writes for the Washington Post. And he was saying, a pox on both your houses. He wrote that what both sides really needed was lots of birth control. And reading this, I'm thinking [sarcastically], 'Yes, Planned Parenthood, why DON'T you provide birth control for people??' I mean, what planet is this man living on? Abortion opponents are the main reason it's hard to get birth control in this country. And abortion supporters are the people who WANT to blanket the country in birth control."


Me again:

I know someone online who's in his 60s and is very smart, but he honestly believes abortion is an industry.

You'd think everyone would see by now that if anyone is making it an "industry," it's the people who would love to take away ADULTS' access to contraceptives.

And am I supposed to believe that the 26 states or so that can't wait to ban abortion are going to do the logical thing and make it easier for poor women, especially, to get safe, effective contraceptives? Or to get sterilized if they want to? Fat chance.

From elsewhere:

Family attorney Robert Franklin, in March 2022:
“Amazingly, almost half of pregnancies are reported by women to be ‘unintended.’ What that means exactly is anyone’s guess, but there’s no way that a female contraceptive pill that’s 99% effective when used properly and 91% effective on average produces a 46% ‘unintended’ rate.”

Me:
There’s nothing “amazing” about it, and the next sentence was very misleading.

People just don’t do the math. What I mean is: a woman has about 30 years of fertility. So, even if she only has sex 12 times a year, on average (ha!), but only wants two children (typical for American women), that’s still well over 300 times that she has to PREVENT pregnancy, with or without help from the man. Not to mention that typically, the Pill has to be taken at the same time Every Day, so every day, there’s a chance for error. (Never mind all the women who can’t use hormonal methods, for medical reasons – such as women who smoke.) With that in mind, it’s kind of surprising that ONLY half of all pregnancies are unplanned. Because of those numbers, one could argue that a woman who tells her doctor “I planned this pregnancy” is more likely to be lying, out of pure embarrassment, than a woman who says “I didn’t want this to happen.”

Bottom line: 30 years is a very long time to go without at least SEVERAL slip-ups. Also, just how often do sex-ed teachers tell their students, loudly and clearly, that using the Pill alone is not enough, if you’re serious about contraception? If they emphasized that more, it just might help. Parents need to tell their kids the same thing. While they’re at it, they can tell them that, whether you’re male or female, if YOU’RE the one who doesn’t want a pregnancy, it’s YOUR job to make sure at least two or three BC methods are being used. Always. (It helps not to sleep with near-strangers – or with anyone who’s just plain dumb.)

[Scott Brady]

> As columnist Katha Pollitt said in 2014, if every woman with an unplanned pregnancy chose adoption:
>
> "...there would be a surplus of babies in about five minutes.

Are there no prisons?

[Scott Brady]

> As columnist Katha Pollitt said in 2014, if every woman with an unplanned pregnancy chose adoption:

And if your aunt had a mustache, she'd be your uncle.

It's a bullshit scenario.

I apologize if your aunt had a mustache.

[Lenona]

If you're equating her with Scrooge, that's unfair.

Here's the whole paragraph (and article), if you insist:

http://review.gawker.com/abortion-is-not-a-tragedy-an-interview-with-katha-poll-1646628315

"Another theme of anti-abortion coverage is, give the baby up for adoption, make another woman happy. Well, if a woman wants to do that, fine. But the idea that abortion is a problem, and adoption is the solution, is really the wrong way to look at it. First of all, if we did that, there would be a surplus of babies in about five minutes. There are not as many people who want to adopt as adoption organizations want you to think there are. But why should you have to go through this very physically serious, and emotionally serious, event of pregnancy and childbirth, in which many women die and many are injured and maimed?"

(end of excerpt)

There's a reason, after all, that very few single women who give birth, choose adoption.

Namely, a woman who does so will likely shatter herself emotionally for life.

Pollitt also wrote, in 1994:

"...you don't find many 15 - year - olds dropping out of the Dalton School to have babies . Girls with bright futures — college , jobs , options — have abortions . It's the ones who have nothing to postpone childbearing for who become mothers ."

And in 1996:

"...There are good reasons why only 3 percent of white girls and 1 percent of black girls—and an even tinier percentage of adult women— choose adoption. Maybe more would do so if adoption were more fluid and open—a kind of open-ended 'guardianship' arrangement, but that would surely discourage potential adoptive parents. The glory days of white-baby relinquishment in the 1950s and 1960s depended on coercion—the illegality of abortion, the sexual double standard and the stigma of unwed motherhood, enforced by family, neighbors, school, social work, medicine, church, law. Those girls gave up their babies because they had no choice and that’s why we are now hearing from so many sad and furious 50-year-old birth mothers. Do we really want to create a new generation of them by applying the guilt and pressure tactics that a behavior change of such magnitude would require? Right now, pregnant girls and women are free to make an adoption plan, and for some it may indeed be the right choice. But why persuade more to—unless one espouses the anti-choice philosophy that even the fertilized egg has a right to be born, and that terminating a pregnancy is 'selfish'? I’m not belittling the longings of would-be adoptive parents, but theirs is not a problem a teenager should be asked to solve. Pregnancy and childbirth are immense events, physically, emotionally, socially, with lifelong effects; it isn’t selfish to say no to them. Promoting adoption instead of abortion sounds life-affirming, but it’s actually physically dangerous, cruel and punitive. That’s why the political and media figures now supporting it wouldn’t dream of urging it on their own daughters. . . . They have a right to put themselves first."

[Lenona]

What's also interesting is that, until last year or so, the anti-abortion forces had actually more or less stopped promoting adoption as the solution - and now, all of a sudden, they're promoting it again. (As if there weren't already thousands upon thousands of foster kids who have to BEG to be adopted, week after week. So how is Pollitt's scenario "bullshit"?)

See here for Cynthia M. Allen's anti-abortion column, in which she, amazingly, contradicts what conservatives used to say, by implying that women CAN have it all - just not on their terms. (Note that she avoids talking about adoption altogether.)

https://groups.google.com/g/alt.obituaries/c/Dm66WzLa1qs/m/VzP7GeNEBQAJ

[Louis Epstein]

Lenona <leno...@yahoo.com> wrote> By Charles P. Pierce, political blogger, sportswriter, and author of four books,

> including Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the
> Free (2009).
>
> https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a39891780/supreme-court-roe-v-wade-samuel-alito-draft-opinion/
>
> Excerpt:
>

> "...What Alito?s reassurance does remind me of is the claim within the decision in Bush v. Gore that it was 'limited to the present circumstances.' As ProPublica pointed out two years ago, Bush v. Gore has been cited as precedent in nearly 200 cases. Even if I had a scintilla of trust in Alito?s reassurance...he wouldn?t be able to follow through on it if a state, say, wanted to outlaw gay marriage, or restrict the sale of contraception...
>
> "Remarkably, this blockbuster came at the end of a day that began with a story in the Washington Post about how the anti-choice forces in Congress were already planning to propose a nationwide ban on abortion should the Republicans carry the midterm elections this fall. That?s for any of you who believe that Alito and the apparent majority are sincere about letting the states make up their own minds."

As far as the headlined decisions go,
I want Griswold and Loving secured,Lawrence eviscerated, and Obergefell
obliterated.

-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.

[Scott Brady]

On Friday, May 6, 2022 at 10:03:04 PM UTC-5, Lenona wrote:
So how is Pollitt's scenario "bullshit"?)

Did I say bullshit? The idea that every woman with an unplanned pregnancy might choose adoption?

I meant complete, fucking, irrelevant, predictable batshit bullshit from a typical left-wing bullshit spewer.

The whole point of Roe v. Wade is that neither you nor I have any say in the matter. So give it a rest until the Court rules otherwise.

[Lenona]

On Saturday, May 7, 2022 at 12:48:41 AM UTC-4, Scott Brady wrote:
> On Friday, May 6, 2022 at 10:03:04 PM UTC-5, Lenona wrote:
> So how is Pollitt's scenario "bullshit"?)
> Did I say bullshit? The idea that every woman with an unplanned pregnancy might choose adoption?

That's precisely the "solution" the anti-abortionists keep pushing for all the women who have no intention of raising a child or an extra child. (What the former group loves to ignore is that 60% of women seeking abortions in the U.S. already HAVE children.) So if you mean the conservative "solution" is stupid, I agree.

What I was saying earlier, however, is that there's nothing stupid about Pollitt's statement that there really aren't as many eager adoptive parents as there USED to be.

Not to mention that modern fertility clinics have made it even harder for foster children to get adopted. If Roe vs. Wade gets overturned, the plight - and number - of foster children will only get worse.

[Louis Epstein]

Anti-abortionists try to paint abortion rights as racist,
because black embryos are likelier to be aborted...of course
that means more black women WANT and would be DENIED abortions,
and those making the denials are the racists.
I've read that 90% of embryos diagnosed with Down's Syndrome
get aborted,so asking that they not be is advocating for a
900% increase in the number of babies with Down's Syndrome...
who's eager for that?

[Lenona]

On Sunday, May 8, 2022 at 2:51:53 AM UTC-4, Louis Epstein wrote:


> Anti-abortionists try to paint abortion rights as racist,
> because black embryos are likelier to be aborted...of course
> that means more black women WANT and would be DENIED abortions,
> and those making the denials are the racists.

THANK you.

In 2018, at Amy Alkon's now-defunct blog, I posted a link to a Margery Eagan column that mentioned the long anti-abortion standing of white supremacists. (Of course, that doesn't mean the converse is true - and yes, there are plenty of nonwhite anti-abortionists.) Title:
"Race, not abortion, was the founding issue of the religious right."

You can read the column here:

https://www.proquest.com/bostonglobe/docview/1994037324/C4B77203A7344F0APQ/1?accountid=38363

At least one person thought it was ludicrous to suggest that such people would be anti-abortion - he said something like: "that would be advocating for more black babies!"

Well, first of all, since when are white supremacists in favor of women's rights in general, duh?

And opposing abortion is a great way for politicians to keep poor people poor and easier to control. So white supremacists had to choose between:

1. allowing black families to become more affluent due to family planning

2. forcing white families, even poor ones, to have more babies.

I think it's clear why #1 would not be considered acceptable - and why #2 would be considered no big deal.

Which would also help to explain why access to birth control and sterilization is likely next on the chopping block, as UMass professor Karen Lindsey sort of predicted back in 1972 - I've mentioned her here before. "Why Children?" (1980, ed. Dowrick & Grundberg) is a collection of essays by 18 women. Most of the women became mothers. Lindsey got sterilized at age 28, despite the opposition of her relatives AND her left-wing "friends." Her essay is on pages 243-249. Quote:

"Abortion and other forms of contraception still allow room for the myth of woman's destiny: 'I don't want children YET.' Sterilization says, firmly, that for the woman seeking it, the question is not birth control but birth prevention, and childless women who opt for sterilization are making it clear that they, and not society, will determine their 'roles.' "

(The rest of the essay is fascinating; she said she first got an image of how happy a childfree life could be at age 7, when she saw Betty Hutton as a trapeze artist in the movie "The Greatest Show on Earth.")

[Lenona]

Oh, yes - I forgot to say, it's been well-documented that since the early 1990s - that is, 20 years after Roe v. Wade - the crime rate has gone down. The popular theory, of course, is that that was due to fewer unwanted children being born. If anyone has come up with a convincing argument against that theory (or an alternative explanation), I've never heard of it.

At any rate, it'll be interesting to see what the crime rate looks like 20 years from now. (Not to mention the extra aggravation caused by overcrowding - by my OLD calculations, the global population will reach 10 billion circa 2045, contrary to what the United Nations has been predicting.)

On the other hand, maybe this will inspire certain men's rights activists (MRAs) to rethink their dislike of male birth control. That is, those who say they can't wait for the new methods to be available in the U.S. seldom or never say THEY will use them - they just want hordes of OTHER men to use them, so as to put women into a panic. Fat chance. Plus, if women were really so desperate to have babies, they wouldn't be saying, over and over, "I wouldn't trust a man to take a pill every day!"

As at least one MRA has graciously admitted, on average, it isn't the middle-class, well-educated women who are eager to have children out of wedlock anyway - and certainly not with reluctant men!

Just because there's no shortage of out-of-wedlock children, doesn't mean female dishonesty was necessarily involved. Besides, there's also no shortage of men who practically take pride in having babies with multiple women. (Some famous examples: Clint Eastwood, Jack Nicholson, Mick Jagger, and Eddie Murphy.)

[Lenona]

"What makes you not want to have kids?"

https://www.buzzfeed.com/ravenishak/people-who-dont-want-kids

Best reasons out of 26, IMO:

1, 5, 7, 8, 13, 15, 16, and 21-26.

One reason not mentioned directly:

Even if you raise a perfect child to adulthood, there's no guarantee that young adult won't get hit by a car and become your dependent for life. So if you're hoping for someone to support you in your old age, that ain't the way to go.

[Lenona]

> And am I supposed to believe that the 26 states or so that can't wait to ban abortion are going to do the logical thing and make it easier
for poor women, especially, to get safe, effective contraceptives? Or to get sterilized if they want to? Fat chance.

In the meantime:

"Risky Herbal 'DIY' Abortions Circulate After Roe v. Wade Leak"

https://www.newsweek.com/herbal-diy-abortions-roe-wade-1703783

I understand Newsweek's not mentioning this, but there's a big difference between ingesting the OIL extract (often deadly) from an herb and ingesting a tea made from the leaves. Otherwise, you wouldn't see such herbs in those big jars in health stores. (The tiny bottles of oil - for EXTERNAL uses - have warning labels, naturally.)

Also, such teas are certainly not to be used after several weeks or so.

[Louis Epstein]

Lenona <leno...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Just because there's no shortage of out-of-wedlock children, doesn't mean
> female dishonesty was necessarily involved. Besides, there's also no shortage
> of men who practically take pride in having babies with multiple women. (Some
> famous examples: Clint Eastwood, Jack Nicholson, Mick Jagger, and Eddie
> Murphy.)
>

Let's not forget Rod Stewart,David Foster (finally has a son with Katharine
McPhee after five daughters with other women),and five-times-wed George
Foreman and his five sons George,George,George,George,and George.

[Scott Brady]

On Sunday, May 8, 2022 at 10:33:20 AM UTC-5, Lenona wrote:
> On Sunday, May 8, 2022 at 2:51:53 AM UTC-4, Louis Epstein wrote:
>
>
> > Anti-abortionists try to paint abortion rights as racist,
> > because black embryos are likelier to be aborted...of course
> > that means more black women WANT and would be DENIED abortions,
> > and those making the denials are the racists.
> THANK you.

Go fuck yourselves.

[Lenona]

And:

https://www.scribd.com/document/352693971/Uni-Tiamat-Herbal-Abortion-Forbidden-Fruit-of-the-Tree-of-Knowledge

The print is tiny, but one can always use Ctrl +.

[Lenona]

On Friday, May 6, 2022 at 11:23:12 PM UTC-4, Louis Epstein wrote:

> As far as the headlined decisions go,
> I want Griswold and Loving secured,Lawrence eviscerated, and Obergefell
> obliterated.

I forgot to say: while in theory, abolishing Lawrence v. Texas would not eventually affect heterosexuals' right to privacy, somehow I doubt it.

After all, we're talking about the "right" of the law to break down doors in private residences. Not the right to stop sex from taking place in public parks at night.

So, anyone with a grudge against you could make a false accusation in order to get the police to break in and find things that could cause trouble for you - whether it's evidence of adultery, contraband goods or something else.

[Lenona]

Also: in 2019, at least, adultery was illegal in...18 states.

More on that, from a law professor:

https://www.salon.com/2019/05/06/adultery-and-fornication-why-are-states-rushing-to-get-these-outdated-laws-off-the-books/

True, you don't hear of anyone going to JAIL for adultery...but regarding the future, who knows.

[Lenona]

On Sunday, May 8, 2022 at 11:33:20 AM UTC-4, Lenona wrote:
> On Sunday, May 8, 2022 at 2:51:53 AM UTC-4, Louis Epstein wrote:
>
>
> > Anti-abortionists try to paint abortion rights as racist,
> > because black embryos are likelier to be aborted...of course
> > that means more black women WANT and would be DENIED abortions,
> > and those making the denials are the racists.
> THANK you.
>
> In 2018, at Amy Alkon's now-defunct blog, I posted a link to a Margery Eagan column that mentioned the long anti-abortion standing of white supremacists. (Of course, that doesn't mean the converse is true - and yes, there are plenty of nonwhite anti-abortionists.) Title:
> "Race, not abortion, was the founding issue of the religious right."
>
> You can read the column here:
>
> https://www.proquest.com/bostonglobe/docview/1994037324/C4B77203A7344F0APQ/1?accountid=38363
>
> At least one person thought it was ludicrous to suggest that such people would be anti-abortion - he said something like: "that would be advocating for more black babies!"
>
> Well, first of all, since when are white supremacists in favor of women's rights in general, duh?
>
> And opposing abortion is a great way for politicians to keep poor people poor and easier to control. So white supremacists had to choose between:
>
> 1. allowing black families to become more affluent due to family planning
>
> 2. forcing white families, even poor ones, to have more babies.
>
> I think it's clear why #1 would not be considered acceptable - and why #2 would be considered no big deal.

Well, what do you know...

https://time.com/6178135/buffalo-shooting-abortion-replacement-theory/?utm_source=roundup&utm_campaign=20220525

May 21, 2022

Excerpts:

...The anti-abortion movement was born in the 19th century of white fears of a declining white birth rate, says Jennifer Holland, assistant professor of history at the University of Oklahoma. The idea was that by allowing white women to receive abortions, lawmakers were leaving white populations vulnerable to demographic “replacement” by non-white or immigrant groups with higher birth rates. In the 1870s and ’80s, the fear was primarily focused on Jewish and Catholic immigrants, especially those from Italy or Ireland, who had higher birthrates than white Protestants at the time; now, white power organizations that embrace “replacement theory” focus on Black and Latino communities, which have higher birth rates than whites.

While the Buffalo gunman did not explicitly mention the word “abortion” in his manifesto, he references birth rates more than 40 times, according to a TIME analysis, and repeatedly expresses his belief that “white birth rates must change.”

This week, Matt Schlapp, the head of the Conservative Political Action Conference, explicitly linked replacement theory, immigration and anti-abortion, telling reporters in Hungary that overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision enshrining a right to abortion, would be a good “first step” in fixing the U.S.’s immigration “problem.” “If you’re worried about this quote-unquote replacement, why don’t we start there?” he said...


...But if mainstream anti-abortion activists flatly reject rightwing extremists, the relationship is complicated by the fact that rightwing extremists see the anti-abortion movement as a useful political ally—and a potential pool of new recruits. In December, Thomas Rousseau the leader of the white nationalist group Patriot Front reminded his members of approaching opportunities to recruit and proselytize. “Our two March For Life events are coming up,” he wrote to his followers, according to leaked chats published by media nonprofit Unicorn Riot. “The aim is to be more understated, friendly, in smaller groups, and get as many flyers out as possible.”

Rightwing extremists attach themselves “like a leech” to traditional Republican constituencies, Mike Madrid, a veteran Republican strategist who has been critical of the party in the age of Trump, told TIME earlier this year. In doing so, he says, they legitimize and normalize their extremist positions...

(this is followed by a description of laws passed in the 19th century)


Me:
Aside from racism, general sexism or economists' fear of a shortage of taxpayers, it's commonly said that anti-abortionists want to punish women for having sex.

Personally, I doubt it. Why? Because there's still plenty of hostility, in religious communities, toward almost anyone who refuses to marry or have babies - even when that person has no sex life at all. Childfree singles often have more money - and they vote. Many people see childfree WOMEN, with their political power, as more terrifying than childfree men - but who knows why. Both have the power to change society greatly, as the childfree Ralph Nader did. (As anyone knows, he's had no shortage of enemies in Big Business.)

So one could argue that it's more about hostility toward individual women who want to control their own futures than about hostility toward women who want to have sex (very often MARRIED women, mind you) without having to give birth.

[Lenona]

On Sunday, May 8, 2022 at 2:51:53 AM UTC-4, Louis Epstein wrote:

> Anti-abortionists try to paint abortion rights as racist,
> because black embryos are likelier to be aborted...of course
> that means more black women WANT and would be DENIED abortions,
> and those making the denials are the racists.

More on that:

https://www.dailydot.com/irl/black-woman-harassed-planned-parenthood-blm/

“[The protesters] ignore the fundamental reason women have abortions and the underlying problem of racial and ethnic disparities across an array of health indicators,” the (Guttmacher) Institute shares. “The variation in abortion rates across racial and ethnic groups relates directly to the variation in the unintended pregnancy rates across those same groups.”

“These higher unintended pregnancy rates reflect the particular difficulties that many women in minority communities face in accessing high-quality contraceptive services and in using their chosen method of birth control consistently and effectively over long periods of time,” the Institute continues. “Moreover, these realities must be seen in a larger context in which significant racial and ethnic disparities persist for a wide range of health outcomes, from diabetes to heart disease to breast and cervical cancer to sexually transmitted infections (STI), including HIV.”

[Lenona]

Well, since we've all heard by now...

Here's something I posted on June 9th (only part of the thread).

MAYBE young men in the U.S. will start taking birth control more seriously if/when Roe falls, but we can't count on that. (Right now, it can be hard enough just to get men to pay for the condoms half the time.)

So here's my suggestion.

When young men complain that they don't like condoms, that they're sick and tired of using them, or that a woman who's on the Pill doesn't need an additional contraceptive (which is FALSE; the Pill has a real-life failure rate of 5%), women need to start saying "there's no way I'm getting pregnant unless I want to, 1,000 percent. Therefore, we have to use at least two contraceptives every single time until then. So, either we can keep using condoms - I'll even pay for them - OR you and I can go to my doctor and we can figure out which two contraceptives to use, but YOU will pay for half the total cost. Which do you want?"

Granted, some men would rather break up the relationship than make such a choice - but those men were going to leave eventually anyway, right?

Btw, all this came to mind when I happened to see this:

"Why do so many people have kids when it’s SOOOO easy to just not?"

https://www.reddit.com/r/childfree/comments/v8f35y/why_do_so_many_people_have_kids_when_its_soooo/?sort=controversial

Thankfully, as many commentators pointed out, for most women in the world, it's NOT easy to avoid having babies. Even if you're a celibate adult, you may well be shunned for refusing to follow the script. And even in the U.S., getting access to good, safe birth control isn't always easy either.



Bryan said:
> Of course that would piss off the anti-choicers because
> they are less about pro-life than about female
> promiscuity,

I kind of doubt that.

(Mind you, I REALLY hate to say that.)

The reason I'm saying it is that, again, in highly conservative/religious communities, young men and women alike who refuse to find mates AND refuse to become religious or conservative missionaries, tend to get treated very badly even if they don't HAVE sex lives. (Unfortunately, liberals aren't too kind to heterosexual men who refuse to get married either. Liberals tend to forget that if women have the right to stay single and childfree, so do men.)

What's more, if a man and a woman are both over 60 and having a premarital (not adulterous) affair, unless they're well-known as pillars of their church, are the conservative church leaders really likely to "out" them as sinners?

Most of the time, I suspect, the leaders don't really care about those couples. What they ARE opposed to is young people taking control of their own futures by not having babies, whether through abortion, birth control or celibacy.

Childfree singles often have more money - and they vote. Many people see childfree WOMEN, with their political power, as more terrifying than childfree men - but who knows why. Both have the power to change society greatly, as the childfree Ralph Nader did. (As anyone knows, he's had no shortage of enemies in Big Business.)

...many alleged academics who fight for men's rights talk, online, as though men in long-term relationships shouldn't have to think about birth control at all - that it's "women's work." Even when the man doesn't want a baby and the woman does.

...It's interesting that there wasn't any real, political pro-male-contraception literature that I know of (other than feminist demands) before the mid-1990s.

Why did the change happen then?

Very likely, it's because that's when child-support laws started to grow real teeth.

So, time and again (especially on the site "A Voice for Men"), there was a good deal of chatter from 1998 to 2015 or so about "legal paternal surrender," plus how "the patriarchy will rise again once men everywhere are using the 'male pill'!"

But, those who said they couldn't wait for the new BC methods to be available in the U.S. seldom or never said THEY would use them - they just wanted hordes of OTHER men to use them, so as to put women into a panic. Fat chance.

At any rate, as I implied, men's rights activists haven't been talking much about those subjects in the last few years - likely because they came to realize that most Americans believe that fathers, not unrelated taxpayers, should be paying the bulk of child support, whether the couple is married or not. Plus, they likely realized that most men are not that interested in male birth control either. But, as I said, that may well change, once 26 states ban abortion and men wake up to the fact that child-support laws are not going away.

...Whether you're male or female, if you're old enough to understand the words "long-term consequences," and YOU'RE the one who doesn't want a pregnancy, it's YOUR job to make sure two or three contraceptives are being used, every time. As I said, child-support laws aren't going anywhere - and very few single women who give birth give up the baby for adoption anymore.

And here's an extra tip for men. If the new methods become available, by all means use them, but don't TELL anyone you're using them unless you're forced to. That way, you can't be accused of lying about using them. Of course, that means you'll still have to use condoms until SHE wants to use a different method - but you won't have to worry about breakage or sabotage.

(For more than one reason, I'm sure doctors will not want to have their teenage male patients using those new methods. Therefore, fathers of teen girls will be able to say to their daughters: "If he's a teen and he says he's using something invisible, he's lying. Here's how I know.")

...At any rate, what people need to realize is that regardless of which side you're on, if Roe falls, it won't be just women who will suffer in red states, what with those states' frequent aversion to birth control. It also won't be just couples under 50 who will suffer - or even just people in red states. Why?

Because we've all heard of grandparents who have been forced into raising their grandchildren (sometimes one grandchild after another) when the parents are negligent or otherwise unfit. Think of how those numbers are likely to rise - and plenty of those grandparents live in different states. (Not that it's always a grandparent who feels the moral urge to take custody, if unwillingly - but you get the idea.)

Speak of the devil...

https://www.reddit.com/r/childfree/comments/vbjc6j/my_elderly_neighbors_have_the_saddest_life/

Yes, it's Reddit, but it's plausible enough.

[Scott Brady]

Where do I turn in my husband's condoms?

[Lenona]

Remember the spring of 2020, when humorists everywhere were saying that the lockdowns would result in a baby boom...but they had to eat their words when the reverse happened?

Well, on a similar note:

https://www.reddit.com/r/childfree/comments/vnagm5/permanent_sterilization_requests_increase_at_a/

Not that I really expect the overall birth rate to drop even further. Too many teens - and poor women - are not going to find it easy to access birth control services in red states, never mind sterilization. (Obviously, doctors would never sterilize an average teenager anyway, no matter how loudly the teen demands the operation.)

Excerpts:

DishInteresting1552 8 hr. ago
"If sterilization becomes popular, I worry about new laws being created to stop it from remaining an elective procedure. Like, if there is an uptick on the statistics of people regretting their decision, it could be used to justify laws to regulate sterilization even further."


GuevarasGynecologist 4 hr. ago
"This happened in Poland. Abortion was restricted and then they went after permanent sterilization."


Lilith_Faerie 3 hr. ago
"I am actually wondering if the birth rate is now going to PLUMMET following this ruling. Besides the CF running out to get sterilized, young women who might want kids in 10 years are now going to be choosing IUDs over the pill. Mothers who might want another child but whose pregnancies are high risk or who have had many miscarriages are going to decide it’s not worth it to risk pregnancy in a state where a miscarriage could be prosecuted as a homicide or where a septic uterus can’t get a D&C if the embryo has a heartbeat. I’ve seen several couples who were going to start trying for a baby this year say they’re delaying it now, and might decide against unless they can move to a blue state.

"And, of course, plenty of women WILL get abortion pills online or travel to blue states for abortions if they can.

"Yes, there will be women forced into motherhood by the overturning of Roe. But I’m not so convinced that it will be more than the number of women who decide to never have kids or never have another child in a country that has removed basic bodily autonomy from half the population."

[Lenona]

I forgot to say that the thread is based on this article:

"Since the Roe ruling a gynecology clinic in Texas says it has received increased requests for permanent sterilization: 'I sense that they're scared' "

https://www.businessinsider.com/texas-health-clinic-has-increased-requests-for-permanent-sterilization-abortion-2022-6?utm_source=reddit.com


Excerpts:

"After the Women's Health Domain closed Friday evening for the weekend, it received 109 new patient requests, most of which were requesting tubal ligation, or permanent sterilization.

"...Handcock said most requests for tubal ligation were from people in their 20s. Before Friday, he said it was typical for the clinic to receive one to two requests related to this procedure a week..."

[Lenona]

On Sunday, May 8, 2022 at 11:33:20 AM UTC-4, Lenona wrote:

> On Sunday, May 8, 2022 at 2:51:53 AM UTC-4, Louis Epstein wrote:
>
>
> > Anti-abortionists try to paint abortion rights as racist,
> > because black embryos are likelier to be aborted...of course
> > that means more black women WANT and would be DENIED abortions,
> > and those making the denials are the racists.

> THANK you.
>
> In 2018, at Amy Alkon's now-defunct blog, I posted a link to a Margery Eagan column that mentioned the long anti-abortion standing of white supremacists. (Of course, that doesn't mean the converse is true - and yes, there are plenty of nonwhite anti-abortionists.) Title:
> "Race, not abortion, was the founding issue of the religious right."
>
> You can read the column here:
>
> https://www.proquest.com/bostonglobe/docview/1994037324/C4B77203A7344F0APQ/1?accountid=38363
>
> At least one person thought it was ludicrous to suggest that such people would be anti-abortion - he said something like: "that would be advocating for more black babies!"
>
> Well, first of all, since when are white supremacists in favor of women's rights in general, duh?
>
> And opposing abortion is a great way for politicians to keep poor people poor and easier to control. So white supremacists had to choose between:
>
> 1. allowing black families to become more affluent due to family planning
>
> 2. forcing white families, even poor ones, to have more babies.
>
> I think it's clear why #1 would not be considered acceptable - and why #2 would be considered no big deal.

And I recently found another puzzle piece that would make a lot of sense.

Remember what Rep. Mary Miller said to Trump last month, re the overturn of Roe v. Wade?

“President Trump, on behalf of all the MAGA patriots in America, I want to thank you for the historic victory for white life in the Supreme Court yesterday."

The following is by columnist Renée Graham, who, for what it's worth, is black and probably over 60 by now.

https://www.proquest.com/bostonglobe/docview/2681657888/E9EF8702B0074528PQ/3?accountid=38363

Near the end:

"Nearly half of Republicans believe at least in part that white people are being intentionally replaced by immigrants. Call it white nationalism, white evangelical Christian theocracy, or plain old white supremacy. But whatever you call it, call it out in no uncertain terms."

(Also, check out, in the column, what Lindsey Graham said years ago - and Matt Schlapp, last month.)

So...IF overturning RvW results in a rise in the birth rate of ALL people living in the U.S., that would give conservatives an excuse to turn legal immigrants away. On the assumption that immigrants are heavily non-white, that would slow down the shrinking of the white percentage in the U.S.

More on that:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/20/key-findings-about-u-s-immigrants/

But since a black woman in the U.S. was far more likely to seek an abortion than a white woman, the black population will continue to rise faster in the post-Roe years.

(Which will be another excuse for conservatives to go after almost ANY form of contraception, next!)

Anyway, keeping out non-white immigrants would be another reason for white supremacists to oppose abortion.

[Louis Epstein]

Obergefell weakened Loving,overturning Obergefell should strengthen Loving;
but hands off Griswold!