The Georgia legislature passed a law making abortion after six weeks of pregnancy illegal. I won’t go into all the details of the law. The theory is that a fetal heartbeat can be detected at that time. This is nonsense, because the embryo (it isn’t a fetus until nine weeks after conception) doesn’t have a heart at that point, although it does have a group of cells that, with luck, will become a heart and pulse together.
Pregnancies are defined from the last period, so six weeks is about when a period is late enough (for most women) that the woman starts thinking that maybe she’s pregnant. So the law bans all abortions. It also, and I haven’t dug into these details, makes it likely that women who have miscarriages can be convicted and imprisoned. Some asshole also said that it applies to ectopic pregnancies too, because the embryo/fetus should be removed from its unfortunate implantation outside the uterus and gently placed into that uterus. This is also nonsense – no such procedure has been developed.
Ohio wants to ban insurance coverage for abortion and most types of contraception. (Thanks, debbie!)
Alabama has also indulged in some sort of fuckery around a forced pregnancy law, but they haven’t gotten to voting on it yet.
The ACLU and others are challenging the Georgia law. At least two movie production companies are withdrawing from making movies in Georgia.
The responses on Twitter have been great. Here are some.
It is hard to imagine how much men hate and fear women to write those abortion laws.
— Cheryl Rofer (@CherylRofer) May 10, 2019
Great thread here – women will identify, and men should think about this.
If you didn't bleed through every pair of pants you had in 7th grade, you can't write laws about reproductive rights.
— Megan Gailey (@megangailey) May 8, 2019
My mother was big in the abortion rights movement. In the early 1960s, when abortion was still illegal, she had a miscarriage at around six months. So she's covered in blood, with a dead fetus between her legs, and the doctor told her she couldn't be cleaned up yet. GUESS WHY? 1/ https://t.co/AyUjp4sNeS
— David Avallone (@DAvallone) May 9, 2019
Hi @BeckerGOP, I’m a practicing ob-gyn and researcher on abortion and contraception, and thought you might want some help understanding ectopic pregnancy since your bill (HB182) gets some things wrong. I’ll clear up a few things in this thread. https://t.co/BdXYHnCAtI
— Dr. Daniel Grossman (@DrDGrossman) May 8, 2019
Something that I don't think most people really get is that we've never really seen abortion laws this draconian in the history of the United States, even pre-"Roe v. Wade." https://t.co/oIzaYzKxZT
— David Walsh (@DavidAstinWalsh) May 8, 2019
At six weeks, the embryo is microscopic. A late and difficult period may well be an early miscarriage. Will the legislators want to examine menstrual fluid for those microscopic people?
liz chances are you’ve flushed one of these down the toilet without noticing https://t.co/fPedwV1kw5
— Brandy Jensen (@BrandyLJensen) May 8, 2019
https://twitter.com/noboa/status/1126192158481035264
You can donate to Planned Parenthood here. (thanks joel haines)
I think it’s cool that so many women are talking so candidly about menstruation and related matters.
Over to you all.
The post Keeping Women Barefoot And Pregnant appeared first on Balloon Juice.
