The US abortion bans and women’s rights

Written By: - Date published: 12:22 pm, June 25th, 2022 - 103 comments
Categories: abortion, feminism - Tags: , ,

The obvious politics first. Roe v Wade, the US Supreme Court decision in 1973 that prevented state and federal law from restricting or removing access to abortion services, has now been overturned.

From the Guardian explainer The supreme court just overturned Roe v Wade – what happens next?

Historically, the court has overturned cases to grant more rights. The court has done the opposite here, and its decision will restrict a constitutional right generations of Americans have grown up taking for granted.

As a result of the reversal, states will again be permitted to ban or severely restrict abortion, changes that will indelibly alter the national understanding of liberty, self-determination and personal autonomy.

This is truly terrible. We knew it was likely to happen when Trump was elected, because there was large support for him from anti-abortion lobbyists and because his whole presidency was predicated on male assertion of power to do whatever the fuck he liked. His side was the one that wanted power at any cost. The patriarchy retains power by controlling women and others who are not part of the elite and who won’t support authoritarianism.

It gets worse. One of the judges has opened the door for further regressive reform,

It’s clear that the hard conservatives in the US will do what they can to roll back liberal reforms of the past half century. This puts women, homosexuals, and gender non-conforming people (including trans and non-binary people, but also anyone who doesn’t fit conventional male/female norms) at risk. We know that the Trump presidency went after immigrants as well for instance, separating children from their families. This is the agenda of uber anti-liberal politics.

Enter stage left, the left? Well I’m remembering the left wing men in particular who argued Trump’s not so bad and who at the time denied that abortion rights were at risk. They were told, but it didn’t matter what women said, because there are progressive men who support feminism and women’s politics only so long as it aligns with their own, men who pick and choose which women’s rights they support or don’t. I’m not talking about disagreement here, we all get to do that. I’m talking about whether there is fundamental support for women’s rights as women determine.

Men picking and choosing under a system that men control this is regressive. Progressive is supporting women to have our own politics, trusting us to work through the issues ourselves.

Speaking of which, at the same time, in the UK during Pride month, a lesbian working class woman and feminist with a long history of work on male violence against women, is banned from a speaking event being held at a local library.

That by the way is grass roots feminism at its finest and most potent. You cannot shut us up. Lock us out and we will organise on the streets.

At this point it gets more complex. Gone are the conventional goodie/baddie left and right lines. Trans rights are human rights, but lesbians are losing theirs. Trans activism and allyship should be progressive, but more and more appears to have sanctioned some of the worst misogyny in politics many of us have seen.

Liberal organisations increasingly are removing the visibility of women and our politics,

In case that’s not obvious, it’s not people that travel for abortion, it’s women. Men aren’t losing their reproductive rights. It’s women, trans men and non-binary females. UCLA centres gender identity politics (using the term woman is transphobic) and thus erases the fact the abortion bans only affects those of us who are female. We can support trans men without undermining women, so it begs the question of why increasingly women’s language is being removed but men’s isn’t.

In one of the worse social media examples I’ve seen, Verso, the “largest independent, radical publishing house in the English speaking world”, tweeted this last week,

Unsurprisingly, women on twitter weren’t impressed and the negative ratio on Verso’s tweets would be one of the most extreme I have seen as women flocked to point out the dehumanising and racist nature of the tweets. Verso eventually took the tweets down, but failed to engage or remedy the problem.

Womb carriers, menstruators, birth givers, birthing bodies, non-men, baby factories, gestators… can you tell which is the language of the left or of the right?

It’s been apparent to me for a long time that women’s rights, including here in New Zealand, are at the grace of the dominant system that still largely favours men (even here in New Zealand). We have no baseline rights, only those afforded to us by the vagaries of the political systems that men control. At its worst, it’s Afghanistan and Malta. At it’s least worst, in New Zealand we have laws protecting abortion rights, and those laws are only a few steps away from us tipping into a populist conservative nightmare.

Think it can’t happen here? Go back ten years in the US and you will find that most women didn’t see the collapse of abortions rights in their future. Women in New Zealand tried to organise last year to talk about the impacts of self ID law changes on women and they had to go to court to just to retain venues. The right of women to organise around our own politics is already being curtailed, and with the blessing of many on the left who seem oblivious to how this would play out for everyone if we shift right as a country. Enter stage right, the US.

103 comments on “The US abortion bans and women’s rights ”

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  1. Visubversa 1
    25 June 2022 at 1:25 pm

    You cannot defend what you will not define. When the answer to "what is a woman" is "I am not a biologist" (Judge Brown-Jackson) how can any of the levers of the State be used to protect any of the rights that women have spent the last 100 years fighting for?

    • weka 1.1
      25 June 2022 at 1:34 pm

      reposting this from OM. Chomsky explaining to young leftist buck (and sexist af) Jones the realities of women and law in the US.

      https://twitter.com/HelenaCoates2/status/1526903482455924737

      • Sabine 1.1.1
        25 June 2022 at 1:44 pm

        yes, that clip here.

        But in saying that, this was the reality for those of us who remeber these times.

        In my family the gestational carriers stopped with these shenanigans once they could get the pill without a husband, and an abortion legally if they needed one. My grandmother knew how to self abort. This was spared for her grandchildren.

        But according to men – some men, not all men – that shit never happened and besides, what is a women if not a feelz that men can have and that then makes men women.

        I am very much in favor of the Posie Parker meetings – Stand for Women/Let women speak" then the 'nice and polite' chats in a rented/leased space that may or may not be granted to non males and well behaved and politically approved feminists. Nah, fuck that shit, bring it out in the open.

      • Corey Humm 1.1.2
        28 June 2022 at 2:09 am

        Wow Owen Jones used the term woman.

        Jesus. Christ.

        Owen is often part of the angry lynch mob wanting to burn Rowling co at the stake.

  2. Sabine 2
    25 June 2022 at 1:25 pm

    Weka thanks for this post!

    added to remind us of those that had been there already.

    https://twitter.com/Aja02537920/status/1540401742919213056/photo/1

  3. Molly 3
    25 June 2022 at 1:37 pm

    Thanks, weka.

    No matter how much I think I know and understand on this issue, and the history here and overseas, I always learn more from these dedicated posts and comments.

  4. Tony Veitch (not etc.) 4
    25 June 2022 at 2:26 pm

    The US is only a supreme court twitch or two away from witchcraft trials!

    Cotton Mather would be so proud!

  5. OldManTime 5
    25 June 2022 at 2:51 pm

    A counter view.

    Jeffrey Beausay has written (along with many others) a critique of Roe v Wade, that makes it clear the decision was incorrect. Why Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided. – Jeffrey Beausay

    What the Supreme Court have done is to return the ultimate decision around the legality and scope of abortions to the states, and therefore the democratic process. That's where it belongs.

    [Lettng this one through for the sake of debate – Incognito]

    • pat 5.1
      25 June 2022 at 3:22 pm

      local democracy v national democracy…a problem accentuated by the size of nations…we have been in many ways fortunate due to our lack of scale…and in others, not.

    • weka 5.2
      25 June 2022 at 3:35 pm

      The democratic process that saw women not being legal persons in the US until the 1970s*. It's not really democractic. The 'it's just being fixed' argument is sophistry because it doesn't take into account the imbalance of power within the democracy in question. Men still control most of the US media, politics, and financing of politics.

      *https://thestandard.org.nz/the-us-abortion-bans-and-womens-rights/#comment-1896806

      • OldManTime 5.2.1
        25 June 2022 at 3:58 pm

        I would ague that it is democracy that has advanced the rights of women. The greatest damage done by Roe v Wade was to insert the constitution into an issue that should be determined by the people for the people.

        • SPC 5.2.1.1
          25 June 2022 at 4:22 pm

          That's leaving the determination of the rights of women to the region where they live.

          This will create issues of the like that have not occurred since runaway slaves were returned as owned property. Such as making it a crime to plan an abortion and then leave the state to have one, or banning pregnant women from leaving the state unless they contract to return to give birth.

    • fender 5.3
      25 June 2022 at 3:45 pm

      Well maybe in the interest of this most sacred love for democracy each state should have to have a referendum to make such a decision. A referendum that only actual woman can vote in.

    • SPC 5.4
      25 June 2022 at 3:51 pm

      RBG also questioned whether it could/should have been decided on the right to privacy. Not the result however – she argued on the basis on equal rights (there is a constitutional amendment that would preclude states from exempting themselves).

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Protection_Clause

    • BAW 5.5
      26 June 2022 at 8:41 am

      The Republic of Ireland was given a choice about their abortion laws. The people were given a direct vote on the issue. Sometimes they voted no, sometimes they voted yes.

      But it was their choice.

      Contrast this with the USA – where they got no choice. The Judges did it for them.

      I think it healthy for society that it makes these choices – as then society owns them.

  6. Sabine 6
    25 June 2022 at 2:55 pm

    and stonewall pretending to suddenly care. Are some people realising that they have not changed their sex after all? And they used the word women! OH my gosh. The sky is falling! Duck and cover.

    https://twitter.com/stonewalluk/status/1540374185293189121

    • weka 6.1
      25 June 2022 at 3:24 pm

      evidence of the successes of UK gc feminists. Nice to see some ground being gained.

      • Sabine 6.1.1
        25 June 2022 at 3:33 pm

        Maybe a fear that their gender bullshit is just that and that sex based rights are on the chopping block.

        And i would assume that in the US a whole lot of transmen, non binaries, and other non women woman realise that they are one ejaculation away from a child or several.

        Also, if you look at the twitter accounts for Dems this decision is really good for fund raising and i would assume that SW, Mermaid and all the other woksters will start fundraising also. We lost your rights, but if you give bucket loads of money we might pretend to fight for your unmentionables, but we will still not call you women, that is a word now for men. 🙂 Yeah, i am that cynical.

        But then we know that these rights are all for minorities, and that gay mean can easily self identify out of such a minority by simply pretending to not be gay again as they used too, while women can not self identify out of their sex and the miseries that come with it.

        • weka 6.1.1.1
          25 June 2022 at 3:41 pm

          Couldn't bring myself to look at the Dem commentary. Someone tweeted Biden's shambles of a tweet into my TL. He's quite happy to talk about the taking away of a constitutional right from the people 🙄

          Looking now though, I see his wife knows what a woman is, and that his subsequent tweets talked about women's right to choose, lol.

          • Sabine 6.1.1.1.1
            25 June 2022 at 3:43 pm

            oh they all discovered biological women again, it makes for good fundraising. Money.

            Fearmongering is all they have left now as they never prepared for anything else.

    • Visubversa 6.2
      25 June 2022 at 3:41 pm

      sTonewall showing again that they are "all about the T" . That is where the big money is – and it is on their behalf that Nancy Kelley says that lesbians who are not interested in sex with male bodied people no matter how they dress or what they call their dick, are sexual racists. They have also changed the definition of "homosexual" to people attracted to the same gender, rather than the same sex. Taking the sex out of sexual attraction just shows how desperate they are.

  7. Populuxe1 7
    25 June 2022 at 3:06 pm

    Well I’m remembering the left wing men in particular who argued Trump’s not so bad and who at the time denied that abortion rights were at risk.

    Yes, 55 Percent of White Women Voted for Trump. No, I’m Not Surprised. (truthout.org)

    • Sabine 7.1
      25 June 2022 at 3:10 pm

      yeah, nah nah

      The 53 percent figure turned out to be erroneous, and corrected analyses eventually pegged Trump’s share of the white female electorate closer to 47 percent. Nonetheless, the impulse that propelled so many writers to blame white women for electing Trump proved strong enough to survive even after the factual basis was undercut. Indeed, left-wing opinion writers continued churning out polemics based on the erroneous 53 percent figure for years. The production line has kept running right through the 2020 elections, which have yielded more shaky early-exit-poll data that has been turned into another round of flagellation of white women for their alleged collective sin.

      https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/did-white-women-vote-for-trump-no.html

      and last election

      https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/exit-polls-president.html

      53% of white male voted for Trump

      42% of white women voted for Trump

      that leaves for both election Men as the majority votes for Trump.

      And yes, not all women in the states are unhappy about Roe vs Wade to be cancelled. And they come in all colors and shapes and make. And for what its worth they will be celebrating todays decision.

      • Populuxe1 7.1.1
        25 June 2022 at 3:53 pm

        Even with those figures:

        The 52% statistic appears to be one of those myths. According to a later analysis that experts consider more reliable, a study published in August by the Pew Research Center, the percentage of white women who voted for Trump was actually 47%, compared to 45% for Clinton. That’s still a plurality, and still makes white women more Trump-positive than the overall electorate, which supported Clinton by a 48%-46% margin. White women, who will again be a critical demographic group in the 2018 midterms, were considerably more pro-Trump than nonwhite women, who went for Clinton by a huge margin, 82%-16%.

        • weka 7.1.1.1
          25 June 2022 at 4:42 pm

          can you please explain your point? You've posted some figures but said what the meaning is, particularly in relation to what you quoted from my post.

          • Populuxe1 7.1.1.1.1
            26 June 2022 at 12:58 pm

            I was just curious as to why left wing women who said similar things and indeed actively campaigned against Hillary Clinton – Susan Sarandon for example – were exempt from opprobrium.

            • weka 7.1.1.1.1.1
              27 June 2022 at 3:31 pm

              please link to where Sarandon took a Trumps not so bad position, and I will let you know what I think. Don't see how that relates to your comments though, and you still haven't explained, so let me hazard a guess.

              You don't like NZ left wing men being criticised for their anti feminist and anti-woman politics (for reasons you haven't explained) so you thought you hand wave vaguely at US women voters and imply something from that that you also won't state up front.

              Then you tell me that you're criticising me for not talking about the issue that you've raised but won't explain properly.

            • Nic the NZer 7.1.1.1.1.2
              28 June 2022 at 8:29 am

              Actually, could you please link to where Susan Serandon was exempted from opprobrium.

  9. Anne 9
    25 June 2022 at 3:54 pm

    Reaction from around the world and in NZ:

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/us-supreme-court-ruling-on-roe-v-wade-abortion-law-sparks-anguish-and-joy/S2QMEIZH5LMS4Y7BVRAYNC74WQ/

    My contribution: America is winding the clock back to the middle ages.

    • Descendant Of Smith 9.1
      25 June 2022 at 9:06 pm

      Nah there is still plenty of this approach in the modern world – to suggest it is a relic of several hundred years ago is just not right. It is still an active part of today's world.

      It is still part of NZ society in quite a few churches as well. BOT's (and by definition the state through its lack of enforcement of secular education requirements) have also allowed this crap to slip into mainstream schools.

      It would be a good starting point if we removed religion out of all state funded schools.

  10. fender 10
    25 June 2022 at 3:56 pm

    What a fucking disgrace, they better not keep telling the world they are the 'leaders of the free world'.

    How do they reconcile this 'pro-life' bullshit when they're so hellbent on owning killing machines and carrying them around in public.

    If contraception is next there will be an explosion in STD's will there not. Fucking backward idiots.

    • Descendant Of Smith 10.1
      25 June 2022 at 6:08 pm

      There's a solution for that problem they've used before as well.

      To this end, police and health officers gained the power to arrest and perform crude physical examinations on anyone (though the people they arrested were almost always women) they “reasonably suspected” of carrying an STI.

      if a woman was found to be sick, she was sent to a “detention hospital” (or to jail) until she was deemed cured or “reformed.”

      https://newrepublic.com/article/148493/forgotten-war-women

      In some places this treatment of women continued into the early 70's.

    • Tony Veitch (not etc.) 10.2
      26 June 2022 at 6:07 am

      As someone has pointed out, guns have more rights than women in 'Merica.

    • Treetop 10.3
      26 June 2022 at 12:48 pm

      Your second paragraph is my view as well.

      Access to firearms are more important to those who insist on having them than the safety of children when in school. I have come to the conclusion that many people in the US feel so unsafe unless they are armed. Yes a backward society.

  11. roblogic 11
    25 June 2022 at 5:17 pm

    While women in terrible situations deserve empathy and support, I'm ambivalent about it — it's not a neutral healthcare procedure, especially in the later stages of pregnancy. Also, I don't know all the ins and outs of the US legal system. The USA is not unique in its confused approach to the issue.

    https://twitter.com/fischerking64/status/1540384614140719104?s=21&t=njRQMn5nMaay4H4mgO96Aw

    https://twitter.com/dilanesper/status/1540354402958991366?s=21&t=njRQMn5nMaay4H4mgO96Aw

    https://twitter.com/resistingmordor/status/1540372462034194439?s=21&t=njRQMn5nMaay4H4mgO96Aw

    • SPC 11.1
      25 June 2022 at 5:23 pm

      Kavanaugh's opinion is interesting, but not impactful until one of the others (of the 6) agree.

      This is a country where contraception is being taken off health care plans and red states are defunding Family Planning, and there are indications that fertility treatment might be proscribed (because of unused fertilised eggs).

    • weka 11.2
      25 June 2022 at 5:37 pm

      as someone points out in a reply, in France/Germany, first trimester abortion is easily available, as is contraception and healthcare.

      Abortion in France is legal on demand during the first 14 weeks from conception.[1][2] Abortions at later stages of pregnancy are allowed if two physicians certify that the abortion will be done to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman; a risk to the life of the pregnant woman; or that the child will suffer from a particularly severe illness recognized as incurable.[3][4][5]

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_France

      France has been liberalising abortion access. This is quite different from the US situation.

      it's not a neutral healthcare procedure, especially in the later stages of pregnancy.

      for some women, it is neutral, although I agree that third trimester is much more difficult. But lots of medical care isn't neutral. Decisions about medical treatments are often fraught and complex. Or simple, and for many women abortion is a simple act.

      People's feelings about foetuses and personhood vary a lot. That's a different thing.

    • weka 12.1
      25 June 2022 at 7:45 pm

      as an aside, I tried watching Obi Wan Kenobi and couldn't make it through the recap. Useless recap that looked thrown together because the series was made for the clique. I might go back and watch earlier ones so to see if I can get up to speed. Is it worth it?

      Have just watched X men (because I just watched Multiverse, which was also very cliquey). Tolerable despite its age. Will they get better?

      • Puckish Rogue 12.1.1
        25 June 2022 at 8:17 pm

        I'll show you this clip from Obi Wan Kenobi and you can judge for yourself:

        I'd suggest watching the Clone Wars instead

        The X-Men series is tricky to judge because theres some good movies and some really bad movies and theres a lot of them

        This is a pretty good list: https://movieweb.com/all-x-men-movies-ranked/

        I personally wouldn't bother watching any after number 7 unless you're a glutton for punishment also be aware that the director Bryan Singer has a lot allegations against him (if that influences your viewing choices)

        • weka 12.1.1.1
          25 June 2022 at 8:56 pm

          good lord that video clip was bad. Can we blame some of it on the pandemic? Because it's hard to understand how they could make a scene so stupid without such a stressor.

          X-men the first is at #4, that tells me a lot.

          • Puckish Rogue 12.1.1.1.1
            26 June 2022 at 5:17 am

            You sort of can blame Covid a little but most of the blame can be rightly be put on Kathleen Kennedy

            The main issue I have with the series is how much canon breaking the series does

            We know Obi Wan Can Blow Me had the task of looking after Luke yet deserts him to search for Leia

            We know from the OG trilogy that Leia is a princess, a leader, can think on her feet and is brave yet this isn't enough now shes also stronger in the force than Luke is

            This show leads into A New Hope but the movie doesn't mention the adventure Leia and Obi Wan both had together approx ten years earlier?

            We're also supposed to accept that Jedi Master and General Kenobi, having taken on the task of protecting Luke, would basically stop training thereby making it harder to protect Luke

            Another pet peeve of mine is that getting skewered through the stomach is now survivable…

            Disneys motto should now be "consume product and get excited for new product"

            • Nic the NZer 12.1.1.1.1.1
              28 June 2022 at 8:36 am

              In "A new hope" Lukes first interpretation of Leia's message to Obi Wan is who? Is that crazy uncle Ben?

              The lack of training of Luke is absolutely cannon from the first movie.

              • Puckish Rogue …
                28 June 2022 at 10:13 am

                I said: 'We're also supposed to accept that Jedi Master and General Kenobi, having taken on the task of protecting Luke, would basically stop training thereby making it harder to protect Luke'

                Meaning we're supposed to believe Obi Wan Can Blow Me stopped training (himself) thereby making it harder to protect Luke

                No, thats bullshit.

                If you really want to talk canon then why did the Organas not deal with Leias abduction themselves, she was their responsibility

                Why did Can Blow Me desert his responsibility and leave Luke on his own and go to find Leia

                The whole series is s**t and is designed for one purpose and one purpose only, the destruction of the original cast to make way for the new cast

                • Nic the NZer …
                  28 June 2022 at 11:10 am

                  Theres also the question of why Leia sends her message to Kanobi if he is merely a name from an old story to her.

                  The star wars series isn't exactly written as a single cohesive story line so I think its very difficult to interpret cannon. Its then very problematic to work out who pushed production decisions on who.

                  • Puckish Rogue …
                    28 June 2022 at 11:19 am

                    Kathleen Kennedy is where the problem is.

                    But I'm almost convinced that Disney will remake the episodes 1 – 6 of Star Wars and will retcon everything

                    Also how is it that surviving getting stabbed by a Lightsaber is now super easy, barely an inconvenience

        • Muttonbird 12.1.1.2
          25 June 2022 at 9:31 pm

          You're a mean old bugger, aren't you?

          It's Disney, right. Kids watching, etc. Not everything is made specifically for disgruntled prison officers.

          • Puckish Rogue 12.1.1.2.1
            26 June 2022 at 5:27 am

            Entertainment aimed at kids doesn't mean that kids entertainment is free from criticism nor does it mean it has to be sloppy or bad

            Toy Story 1 – 3, The Princess Bride, Gremlins, Aardman Productions, ET, Finding Nemo, The Invincibles, Zootopia

            All kids movies, all excellent movies that respect kids and don't talk patronise them

  13. weka 13
    25 June 2022 at 7:53 pm

    Here we have another example. Women's rights has become human rights.

    https://twitter.com/KyleDChurch/status/1540557868004708352

    • Descendant Of Smith 13.1
      25 June 2022 at 8:05 pm

      Tear gas can cause babies to abort. Extremely sad and ironic.

      One commentator.

      Yep. Cops can spray whatever they want. It’s a fertile woman’s responsibility to not go anywhere or do anything or make any noise.

      • Sabine 13.1.1
        25 June 2022 at 8:35 pm

        yes, that will be the next thing in a country that already has 'protections for the preborn' and will get more. Women will be arrested for endangering their fetus for all sorts of things. I give it a few month for the red states to come up with something.

  14. Sabine 14
    25 June 2022 at 8:32 pm

    While the right has diligently chipped away at women’s rights, the left’s response has been to offer nothing but blackmail. Stick with us, because the other guys are even worse. Sure, it feels undignified to call yourself a ‘menstruator’ or a ‘uterus bearer’, but that’s the cost of admission to the big liberal tent. If you don’t want to be reduced to your reproductive system, better start by reducing yourself to your reproductive system.

    What a joke. The right won their war on Roe because they took abortion seriously. The left lost because they treated it as a triviality, a done deal, something they could threaten women with (imagine if you lost this!) but never had to actively defend.

    Ouch, but true.

    This is a gutting read but an honest one.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-the-right-won-the-war-on-roe

    And the left here in NZ might start asking themselves if their rights that they cherish so much are any safer here then there.

    • Descendant Of Smith 14.1
      25 June 2022 at 8:59 pm

      I have definitely commented here and elsewhere that some things have slipped backwards for some time. Have oft criticised unions for being a branch of the employers HR department.

      Things have been getting lost for 40 years now. Most people are too young to know what some things were like before some hard battles were won.

      Every now and then you get some hope – UNITE was a breath of fresh air in the union movement, the Greens push for improved benefit rates etc showed up the Labour Party as the supercilious neo-liberal twits they had become.

      The right though are good at the divide and conquer game and on keeping the class war focussed on crime and things that protect their lives and assets – cause frankly that is all they care about.

      Housing is the classic example – it is basic capitalism to increase demand and reduce supply to drive up prices and to create wealth for themselves and to create poverty for others. Key's government deliberately increased the population while reducing state housing. There could only be one very predictable outcome.

  15. joe90 15
    25 June 2022 at 8:34 pm

    What a fucking nightmare.

    In the wake of the Supreme Court's decision Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade, privacy experts are increasingly concerned about how data collected from period-tracking apps, among other applications, could potentially be used to penalize anyone seeking or considering an abortion.

    Millions of people use apps to help track their menstrual cycles. Flo, which bills itself as the most popular period and cycle tracking app, has amassed 43 million active users. Another app, Clue, claims 12 million monthly active users.

    The personal health data stored in these apps is among the most intimate types of information a person can share. And it can also be telling. The apps can show when their period stops and starts and when a pregnancy stops and starts.

    That has privacy experts on edge because this data — whether subpoenaed or sold to a third party — could be used to suggest that someone has had or is considering an abortion.

    https://www.npr.org/2022/05/10/1097482967/roe-v-wade-supreme-court-abortion-period-apps

    • weka 15.1
      25 June 2022 at 8:58 pm

      fortunately fertility track can be done on paper, and women should be learning how to do that now (and deleting their apps)

  16. Ross 16
    26 June 2022 at 7:47 am

    Fewer abortions means fewer cases of unborn children dying in pain. That's got to be positive. And it means that some couples who are unable to have children may now get the chance to do so. It's a win-win. I look forward to further commentary on these.

    Of course, women travelling to another State for an abortion will be inconvenient, but not as inconvenient as losing one's job. About 3% of workers in New Zealand lost their jobs as a result of choosing not to be vaccinated against COVID-19. The risk of serious side effects from the vaccines outweighed the risk of hospitalisation from the virus. Choosing not to be vaccinated was a sensible choice for many people (especially as the risk of harm from the virus was very low).

    As has been discussed previously, rights aren't absolute. When you're inflicting pain on an unborn child, it's not unreasonable to think that your rights should be restricted. And if an unvaccinated person can have their rights curtailed for merely making a sensible choice about their own body, it's not a big leap in logic to expect others to face consequences for their actions, especially when their actions have a negative effect on others.

    Comparing the excess of serious AESI against the reduction of serious complications of COVID 19 among the vaccinated is essential for harm-benefit analyses. The results show an excess risk of serious AESIs greater than the reduction in COVID-19 hospitalizations in both Pfizer and Moderna trials. These results are compatible with a recent preprint analysis of COVID-19 vaccine trials by Benn et al, which found no evidence of a reduction in overall mortality in the mRNA vaccine trials…

    https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00243639211059245

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/463909/my-boss-wants-me-back-people-who-lost-jobs-over-vaccine-mandates-hope-to-return

    https://whnt.com/news/huntsville/adoption-agencies-could-see-increase-in-demand-after-supreme-court-ruling/

    https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4125239

    • PsyclingLeft.Always 16.1
      26 June 2022 at 8:07 am

      fark. Unbelievable comments. Even conflating NZ's covid vaccinations with the US Abortion decision !? And… there is no "win-win" in any of what you said….

      • Ross 16.1.1
        26 June 2022 at 8:42 am

        PLA

        You may wish to expand on your comments. You seem to have forgotten that many pro-abortion protesters claim that they have the right to abortion based on "my body, my choice". Would you like to explain the logic of that?

        To repeat: not being vaccinated had serious implications for some NZers. Losing one's job was more than just an inconvenience. Given the risk of serious side effects, and the fact that randomized controlled trials of the Pfizer vaccine do not show a decrease in mortality, it's reasonable to ask why the unvaccinated were treated so shabbily. If one section of society can be treated in such a way, merely for making a sensible decision about their own bodies, it's not unreasonable to think that others will face consequences for similar decisions. If you're suggesting we should stop punishing people for making decisions about their own bodies, feel free to explain why.

        https://brownstone.org/articles/have-people-been-given-the-wrong-vaccine/

        • SPC 16.1.1.1
          26 June 2022 at 9:08 am

          Your body your choice whether to

          1. be a greater risk of spreading the virus to others

          2. place the health system under stress

          In the instance of consequence to others, and government determination of the course ahead, there is a democratic process.

          • Sabine 16.1.1.1.1
            28 June 2022 at 11:29 am

            ahh, so its only your body your choice when it suits?

            • SPC 16.1.1.1.1.1
              28 June 2022 at 3:35 pm

              There is a difference in allowing choice when it has an impact on others (public health measures) and when it does not have an impact on others (family planning).

              That said there is a range of determinations as to "others"

              1. Jewish tradition (citing a biblical passage) is life begins at birth.
              2. Others claim it is from conception (the term known in the womb is also biblical).
              3. Some consider the period in which the conceived is dependent on the woman's womb to be that of her family planning sovereignty and beyond that, only if her life is at risk would they allow any termination (because of the ability to extract into an incubator).
              4. Others consider the developmental stages of the embryo into foetus and make other determinations
        • Descendant Of Smith 16.1.1.2
          26 June 2022 at 9:36 am

          Well the US where vaccination was highly variable is a good place to look at the data.

          We included data from 2558 counties in 48 US states (fig 1). In total, we observed 30 643 878 cases of covid-19 and 439 682 covid-19 related deaths over 132 791 county weeks (table 1).

          Every 10% improvement in vaccination coverage was associated with an 8% (95% confidence interval 8% to 9%) reduction in mortality rates and with a 7% (6% to 8% reduction in case incidence.

          Using data from 2558 counties—representing nearly 300 million people and 80% of the US population—we found that increasing the vaccination coverage in counties was associated with a reduced incidence of covid-19 related mortality and cases. We observed decreasing trends in mortality and case incidence associated with higher levels of vaccination coverage across the eras of both alpha and delta variant predominance.

          https://www.bmj.com/content/377/bmj-2021-069317

          Or this one.

          It was estimated that, in 2021, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine (BNT162b2) contributed to averting almost 9 million symptomatic cases, close to 700,000 hospitalizations, and over 110,000 deaths, resulting in an estimated $30.4 billion direct healthcare cost savings, $43.7 billion indirect cost savings related to productivity loss, as well as discounted gains of 1.1 million QALYs. Scenario analyses showed that these results were robust; the use of alternative plausible ranges of parameters did not change the interpretation of the findings.

          https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13696998.2022.2071427

          But you know dying from getting COVID-19 doesn't really figure in your idiotic ideological stance. Everyone knows there was a very small risk of serious side effects and that this was much, much less than the risk of actually having serious health issues from actually getting COVID.

          And now as we pretend the pandemic is over and things are normal and COVID spreads through our communities we are seeing vulnerable people dying. I have a very angry friend who had his grandfather visited by a contagious numpty who then developed COVID-19 and died. The funeral was a couple of weeks ago. You people don't really care about spouting bullshit that it isn't serious – you just have to look at the excess mortality rates to know that it is and that countries who vaccinated had lower mortality rates over that period than those who did not.

          But science will never win the argument against your dogma. I think most of us know that now. No amount of evidence will change your minds.

    • Sabine 16.2
      26 June 2022 at 8:35 am

      And fwiw, the mandates here in NZ were wrong – totally utterly wrong and caused nothing but strive and division, and that is something Labour and those that supported will have to live with.

      But condemning a gestational carrier to death because some doctors refused to scrape out the remains of a rotting fetus of the gestational unit of the gestational carrier is something quite different and to be honest, very very deadly.

      But its ok, right, the things formerly known as woman are not really human. They are support humans, sex/baby provider humans, affirmation humans, kind humans, but never ever just humans with their own needs and rights.

    • SPC 16.3
      26 June 2022 at 8:40 am

      Are you advocating anaesthesia before intrusive abortion actions, or reliance on the induced abortion (via pill) to reduce pain?

      If not, what is your point?

      And banning abortion will cause a lot of pain to both mother and her child in some medical circumstances. Including death to both. Leaving other children without a mother.

      As for your comparison to the pandemic

      1. widespread vaccination in the 2020-2021 period was of a design to protect the health system from being overrun and allow the economy to function – the alternative was continuing resort to lockdowns.
      2. there were young people of a low risk profile who died and those who got long covid – the number of deaths that occurred in the USA in 2021 because of vaccine resistance included a lot of people of the lower risk profile.

      Yes there will be increased demand for adoption services – this is deliberate. First the more stringent moves on (single parent) welfare in the 1990’s. We shall soon see moves to ban fertility services in the USA (Senator Duckworth – who lost her legs in Iraq had a child this way and some of the people in the Senate who said they were happy for her then posted on social media she was a murderer because of unused fertilised eggs) and to match supply and demand …. .

      Gilead …

  17. BAW 17
    26 June 2022 at 9:04 am

    I don't support abortion.

    Banning abortion is easy just pass a law. But we all know that if bans worked nobody would be smoking weed, and everyone would follow the speed limit.

    But I don't see the US looking at the low hanging fruit which would make a difference, like sexual education (Cheap), and childcare for all (But they have plenty of money for F-35's). Never mind the fact that the USA does not cover pre and post natal care, despite the fact that the USA spends more on publicly funded healthcare than some nations spend on total healthcare spend.

    It is no suprise that abortion becomes the economic option.

    • SPC 17.1
      26 June 2022 at 9:51 am

      And they do not provide contraception on health care plans and red states are ending funding to family planning clinics.

      And they do not even have child tax credits even though they know they reduce family poverty (were brought in for a time during the pandemic).

      There are some private groups in some states offering shelter for pregnant women and a place to stay in the first few months after birth.

    • Molly 17.2
      26 June 2022 at 12:21 pm

      When you say “I don’t support abortion.”, it's hard to determine where you actually stand without further details.

      So, do you not support abortion –

      1. When the fetus dies or is unviable but remains unvoided from the mother?
      2. When the mother's life is at risk from continuing gestation?
      3. When a child is impregnated as a result of sexual abuse?
      4. When a women is impregnated as a result of sexual abuse?
      5. When a women has had her methods of contraception tampered with so that they did not work?
      6. Because you believe that pregnancy is a natural and therefore neutral process that has no effect on a woman's body, and does not expose her to health risks? (Untrue, by the way)
      7. Because you believe that from the moment of conception, a dependent cluster of cells takes precedence over the needs and autonomy of the complex, self-supporting body of the woman who contains them?
      8. Because you have no concept of the ongoing costs to women in terms of their lives if they are required to continue with the full gestation period, and deliver a child, when they are neither equipped and/or prepared to do so?

      There's more, but the answers to these questions, will at least give a starting point to the conversation. At present, I have no idea about the reasons for your statement.

  18. Treetop 18
    26 June 2022 at 9:21 am

    Warning content may upset some.

    Who will pay for the DNA test so the mother and child know whether or not the child was conceived by rape?

    In my mother's day there was no DNA testing and conceiving a child and not knowing if the child was conceived by rape or sex with her partner 24 hrs prior to the rape, this was a heavy burden for her and the child she conceived.

    Who the biological father is has never been determined. The damage was done as the rape was taken out on the child.

    I weep for all the children who will have their life ruined before they take their first breath.

    • SPC 19.1
      26 June 2022 at 10:24 am

      In old fashioned language and reasoning, most of those those born female can get pregnant and most of those born male can impregnate others and this remains true no matter how they later identify.

    • Sabine 19.2
      26 June 2022 at 10:35 am

      the thing is we could do 'neutral' language in a second by adopting 'female' to indicate the anatomy of the childbearing human.

      The oppression of the female is on the grounds of their bodies child bearing abilities.

      It is actually so easy yet it seems verboten to properly discuss this.

    • Treetop 19.3
      26 June 2022 at 12:03 pm

      It takes an ova and a sperm to create a baby regardless of the gender a person identifies as.

      Any person who needs a termination should not be affected psychologically, socially or financially. The Roe V Wade decision will have a potentially devastating effect on those who are prevented from having an abortion.

  20. Roy cartland 20
    26 June 2022 at 10:39 am

    The Onion is leaning into it:

    https://www.theonion.com/

    • weka 20.1
      26 June 2022 at 10:57 am

      that deserves a screen shot.

      • Descendant Of Smith 20.1.1
        26 June 2022 at 11:25 am

        Sometimes The Onion hits the nail right on the head.

        Anti-Abortion Advocate Excitedly Switches Focus To Shaming Young Unwed Mothers

        DALLAS—In the wake of the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, local anti-abortion advocate Mary Firkins, 54, excitedly announced Friday that she would now switch her full-time attention to the shaming of young unwed mothers. “It’s been very rewarding these past few decades to value the lives of fetuses over those of the women carrying them, but now I can finally focus all my energy on the whores who get pregnant out of wedlock,” said Firkins, giddily crossing out the names of abortion providers and pharmacists on the envelopes that contained her menacing letters and bomb threats and filling in the names of single mothers-to-be. “I’ve always wanted to remind these irresponsible sluts that it’s all their fault—and I certainly have, on occasion—but I’ve been so focused on saving the unborn that I’ve never had enough time to really get up in their faces and rub it in. The resentment has been piling up for decades, and it’s going to feel so good to let it all out by screaming at young women for having premarital sex, consensual or not. Our hard work has paid off, and it’s time to have some fun!” At press time, Firkins was overheard expressing gratitude for how many more young unwed mothers the court’s ruling would create for her to terrorize.

        https://www.theonion.com/anti-abortion-advocate-excitedly-switches-focus-to-sham-1849106094

        • SPC 20.1.1.1
          26 June 2022 at 11:44 am

          Solo mothers first became targeted individuals in the USA in the 1970's. Their gangstalking was and is a crime against humanity.

      • SPC 20.2.1
        26 June 2022 at 11:51 am

        Gorsuch is now Episcopalian, the other 3 were born to Jewish mothers – Conservative Republicans have a no progressive liberal/left "whites" allowed policy – it confuses the white race and religion identity thing.

    • SPC 21.1
      26 June 2022 at 3:42 pm

      Given they allow advertising of drugs in the USA, one wonders what the RU486 ads will be like …

  22. swordfish 22
    26 June 2022 at 5:20 pm

    .
    For the record … the most recent polling on public attitudes towards abortion in NZ:

    .

    Ipsos (2019):

    Abortion SHOULD be permitted whenever a woman decides she wants one … 51%

    Abortion SHOULD be permitted in CERTAIN circumstances, such as if a woman has been raped … 25%

    Abortion should NOT be permitted under any circumstances, EXCEPT when the life of the mother is in danger … 10%

    Abortion should NEVER be permitted, no matter what circumstance exists … 4%

    Unsure … 10%

    .

    Newshub Reid Research (2019)

    Should Abortion be decriminalised ?

    Yes … 70%

    No … 24%

    Unsure … 7%

    ,

    Which option do you prefer ?

    Option A: there's no test and the woman decides with her health practitioner … 37%

    Option B: there's a test and the woman would need to prove the abortion's appropriate … 43%

    Option C: there's only a test for late-term abortions beyond 22 weeks … 12%

    Unsure … 8%

    .

    .

    Curia (for Family First) (2017):

    Would you describe yourself generally as someone who supports abortion or someone who opposes abortion ?

    Support … 52%

    Oppose … 29%

    Unsure / Refuse … 19%

    What do you think the time limit should be for legally performing an abortion, in terms of weeks ?

    5 weeks … 7%

    10 weeks … 17%

    15 weeks … 17%

    20 weeks … 9%

    30 weeks … 2%

    40 weeks (up to birth) … 2%

    Never Allow … 9%

    Unsure/Refuse … 36%

    Do you support or oppose someone being able to have an abortion just because she doesn’t want to be a mother ?

    Support … 49%

    Oppose … 38%

    Unsure/Refuse … 13%

    .

    New Zealand Election Study (2017):

    Abortion is always wrong ?

    Strongly Disagree … 46%

    Disagree … 18%

    Neutral … 13%

    Agree … 7%

    Strongly Agree … 11%

    • Incognito 22.1
      26 June 2022 at 5:27 pm

      Thanks

      • One standout result of this survey is the change in attitudes toward abortion. In 2017, the survey found that 66% of respondents believed a woman has a right to choose whether or not she has an abortion. In 2021, this percentage climbed to 74%, a significant shift in support for the right to have an abortion, and evidence of abortion being destigmatised.

      https://www.familyplanning.org.nz/news/2022/attitude-to-abortion-standout-in-gender-attitude-survey [March 2, 2022]

      • swordfish 22.1.1
        26 June 2022 at 5:41 pm

        Interestingly, if you go back to the very first NZ polling on the issue in the early-mid 1970s, you'll find that a clear majority supported Abortion even then … though not necessarily on demand. Younger women at the time were the most supportive of abortion & older women the least (probably associated with greater church-going or general religious influence among women born before the 1930s).

        In contrast, at least some of the recent polling suggests the under 50s may be somewhat less liberal on the issue than middle-aged & older.

        There’s never been much difference in attitudes between Labour & National voters … in the 70s Nats were mildly more liberal on abortion than Labour supporters (probably because greater Catholic & Maori & Pasifika among the latter) … now it’s the reverse: Labour voters as a whole mildly more liberal than Nats … but in general looks like the differences have always been marginal over the last 50 years.

        • Incognito 22.1.1.1
          26 June 2022 at 7:17 pm

          Thus, these results both (a) reveal clear partisan differences in which liberal party voters support both types of abortion [traumatic and elective] more than do conservative party voters and (b) extend past research by corroborating partisan effects in an understudied—and less polarized (see Satherley et al., 2020)—multiparty context. [cf. Fig. 9 ; data from August 2017–June 2018]

          https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/2292/59008/Osborne%20et%20al.%20%28in%20press%29.%20Advances.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

          • swordfish 22.1.1.1.1
            26 June 2022 at 11:00 pm

            Interesting … I'm currently a participant in the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study on which that conclusion is based … but I must say the specific Lab-Nat attitudinal differences there (Fig 9) still look pretty marginal … real gap is between Green & NZF voters.

            Meanwhile, here's the Curia cross-tabs from around the same period (2017):

            Would you describe yourself generally as someone who supports abortion or someone who opposes abortion ?

            Support … Green 88% … Labour 59% … National 55% … NZF 43%

            Oppose … Green 12% … Labour 26% … National 33% … NZF 37%

            .

            .

            • swordfish 22.1.1.1.1.1
              26 June 2022 at 11:15 pm

              Broadly similar findings … only seemingly minor differences between Labour & National voters in both surveys … although the Curia poll departs a little in suggesting the most prominent partisan gap in attitudes towards abortion is, in fact, between Green supporters & everyone else.

            • Molly 22.1.1.1.1.2
              6 July 2022 at 11:07 am

              Hi, swordfish, I'm part of that study too. (Lapsed just this year…. frown)

              Every year I comment that the questions are too lacking on detail to answer accurately, so I usually put the answer at the most neutral I can.

              Do you have any problems with the questions?

              • swordfish …
                7 July 2022 at 11:27 pm

                Hi Molly,

                Yeah … many questions are too broad, lacking nuance … and hence ambiguous & difficult to answer.

                In some cases, you notice a dubious (generally ideological) premise or presupposition has been smuggled into the question … again making it hard, if not impossibe, to answer.

                Some biased positive or negative framing here & there.

                An obvious ID Politics emphasis on ethnic identity & ethno-nationalism with multiple questions asked on this theme.

                And some interesting Myers-Briggs personality type questions (which I quite like).

                But unfortunately not too much in the way of measuring views on specific current social or political issues.

                Overall, I still think it’s worth participating … but can be irritating at times.

                • Molly …
                  11 July 2022 at 8:11 am

                  Good to know I'm not the only one who thinks the Pysch faculty at Auckland Uni could have done a better job for such a significant and long running survey.

  24. Corey Humm 24
    28 June 2022 at 2:02 am

    Gay here. Good post. This is utterly predictible and the erosion of the hard won civil rights for women and LGBT and minorities is gonna be a bloodbath.

    How can the left defend womens access to abortion when it won't even say women?!? People don't get abortions women do. The left are literally the Onion at this point.

    How can the left defend my same sex rights and same sex marriage when the left believes same sex attraction is a bigoted gender preference?

    It can't.

    The aclu is now the biggest joke in history. It's sole purpose for existence is defending the right to free speech and has defended the speech of Nazis as well as civil rights activists.

    They'd defend your right to speak to the death even if they detested your views, now they are just another bog standard hack "progressive" (whatever that means) outlet that won't take cases it they are offensive. UCLA when mentioning groups most effected by abortion reforms listed LGBT, no sorry not LGBT … The offensive af term "queer" (which is a hateful word that gays and lesbians have asked to stop being used but we get laughed,it's also a political term for a vocal minority of LGBT who despise assimilation of LGBT into society and what society to change for lgbt, LGBT and queer are not interchangeable, to gays and lesbians it's also white people like calling black people the N word community, it's hurtful) at number one, didn't mention women once!!!

    So how can the left which refuses to say what a woman even is, which tells gays and lesbians they are not same sex but same gendered attracted, which shuts down speech it doesn't if it doesn't fit it's "progressive" narrative (wtf does progressive mean, John Key thinks he's progressive)

    And another thing, it's going to take a coalition of male , female, gay, straight, white black, asian, rich poor, religious, unreligious unifying under a platform to overturn these horrific rollbacks on human rights and being "progressive" on identity issues is too alienating to the majority, a platform of genuine economic and social reforms are going to work.

    Neoliberal identity politics and the neoliberal deindustrialization that left voters behind and bitter and hateful got us into this hateful, divisive angry role back of civil rights.

    Neoliberals take note: Women vs men won't work cos far too many women in the states are anti abortion, gay v straight won't work,white v black won't work.

    Its going to take a coalition of many groups on a shared platform if economic and social and environmental change.

    And ffs lefties HOW CAN YOU DEFEND WOMENS RIGHTS AND ABORTION AND GAY MARRIAGE if you can't define a woman or same sex attraction, if you call pregnant women people, if you call mother's chest feeders, if you call sexuality a gender preference…. you can't. If anything you're recruiting gays lesbians and women to the right with this language.

    Trans people deserve respect and love and you can do that without throwing women and homosexual specific issues out the window.

    Get it together left. This is the beginning of the great rollback.