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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI wonder if the GOP figured women who are past their childbearing years
wouldn't care about abortion rights and pregnancy health care issues.
Maybe they figured men wouldn't care about these issues either.
After all, people in the GOP only care about what affects them directly. They don't give a damn about anyone else.
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dflprincess
(29,184 posts)But they forgot those women (and some of the men) have daughters and granddaughters.
milestogo
(22,645 posts)when abortion was illegal and dangerous.
Novara
(6,115 posts)$200. That's how much it cost when I was in my 20s. And obtainable anywhere. But our mothers grew up in a time when it wasn't legal or safe.
We fucking care. We obtained abortions ourselves and/or drove our friends to the clinic for theirs. We all knew someone who had one. We grew up when it was a given that if you got pregnant by mistake you could easily remedy the situation. And we did.
We care about what happens to young women. Why the HELL shouldn't they have the same rights we had? Just because I won't get pregnant at 61 doesn't mean I don't care about women being forced to be breeders by a bunch of (mostly) men who think they can dictate what women can do with their own bodies.
This is more than the right to choose. It is subverting women to a breeding class. It is stripping them of their right to make decisions about their own bodies and lives. And NO ONE has the right to do that.
Yer damn right we're angry. We're seethingly furious. And we will remain so. This fight is only beginning. They overreached - again - and they have no idea the power of millions of furious women.
Irish_Dem
(80,009 posts)They don't need votes to "win" anymore.
rubbersole
(11,005 posts)Repubs sure aren't listening to political consultants.
Irish_Dem
(80,009 posts)The GOP doesn't need to listen to the people or consultants.
Democracy is no longer of any use to the GOP and stands in the way of
their goal of permanent power and access to all US wealth.
The are ensuring that US states fall one by one to a fascist regime.
rubbersole
(11,005 posts)..might have been the last piece of their puzzle. 30+ years in the making.
Irish_Dem
(80,009 posts)We can see people, talking heads and Americans beginning to ask some questions.
The wheels are beginning to turn at long last.
Yes 30 years in the making funded by dark money and the world fascists who are trying to shift world power.
Final pieces falling into place. US democracy is greatly weakened, fascist takeover state by state.
Judiciary totally bought, and half of the US congress.
If they can get Trump or DeSantis into the White House, all three branches of the US government are gone.
Putin invades Ukraine and his plan was to dominate Europe, the US out of the way.
China invades Taiwan and claims regional victory over the Pacific.
On to their dream of global dominance this century.
Huge amounts of money, time and effort have been expended and the plan is proceeding nicely.
Putin and Xi see Russian failure in Ukraine as a blip in the plans and they will work around it.
They are playing the long game.
I have been posting about this for some time and gotten a lot of pushback but the data is in plain sight
if anybody cares to see it.
Like my professors used to say, follow the data, stick to it closely, it will always tell you the truth.
rubbersole
(11,005 posts)..his incredible ignorance/treason is the average American can see why our democracy is under assault and vulnerable. faux news magats are lost and need to be marginalized. Young people, women, poc, LGBTQ, and workers who are barely getting by are paying attention and voting. In numbers that will be unable to be suppressed. god, I sure hope so. It's people vs unlimited (dark) money.
Irish_Dem
(80,009 posts)Many can now see clearly that we are spectacularly flunking the audit.
I guess we should thank the most ruthless sociopath to ever occupy the WH
in American history for showing us the ugly reality in front of us.
The US is considered to be the greatest democracy in the history of the world.
We now face our most serious battle for survival in our history.
Will the American people show the courage, duty, obligation to stand up for our country
and fight the dark forces who will control us for money and power. Who will kill as many
Americans as it takes to win the war they wage against us?
We don't know how the story will end.
rubbersole
(11,005 posts)I couldn't be more proud of them. The youngest is in college in Atlanta and all the kids are aware of the ruling class bullshit. She also thinks artificial intelligence can solve the carbon emissions damage to the planet. A year ago I wouldn't have even paid attention to that idea. She has me listening.
Irish_Dem
(80,009 posts)The stakes could not be higher, I hope they prevail.
Oh that is an interesting idea about AI solving our problems.
She has me listening as well!
Bettie
(19,317 posts)they are planning to entirely disenfranchise the entire Houston area...because they can.
Irish_Dem
(80,009 posts)
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Otoh, maybe their support'll fall below critical mass well before then. Everyone's lived their entire lives with what is becoming increasingly clear the RW extremists are trying to take away.
Irish_Dem
(80,009 posts)Yes I think it is going to be a long term battle.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)a victory; a lot of them can't take effect and their biggest consequences are to shine spotlights on what they are up to.
The battle continues, but how much effort does responsibly voting every two years to get Republicans out of power take? I'll be doing that until the day comes when I try to eat the ballot instead, but our grandsons will be voting by then.
Irish_Dem
(80,009 posts)And how widespread the corruption is, how many Putin puppets are installed throughout our government.
So we don't really know how long and how much clean up is needed.
The problem is many voters appear to not be doing their jobs and are electing corrupt and traitorous leaders.
shrike3
(5,370 posts)I know people who are planning a move down there because they think it'd be a great place to live.
uponit7771
(93,491 posts)
Aristus
(71,715 posts)For real. I just checked.
And I care about this issue. For the last thirty years, I've voted only for candidates who respect the rights of all Americans. That will continue until the very last election before my death. In it until the end.
Anyone who tries to "both sides" me on this issue is going to get ghosted. Don't even try it.
That's all...
Maru Kitteh
(31,290 posts)hugs 
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)This one's a matter of my husband's rights and interests also, not just those of females he cares about, BUT our commitment is to the freedoms and rights of ALL individuals. That doesn't depend on having any other personal interest in an issue.
senseandsensibility
(24,261 posts)In fact, it is one of their most prevalent personality traits.
Retrograde
(11,379 posts)may have depended on access to birth control as well as good gynecological health services to get them there. And they many have daughters, granddaughters, nieces, friends, acquaintances, co-workers, and so forth who still need access to these services.
Plus, older women are more likely to remember the days before access to reliable birth control and legal abortions, when an unplanned pregnancy often meant derailing any career choice one might be making, or endangering one's health with repeated pregnancies or miscarriages, or being trapped in a life of just scraping by due to all the mouths to feed and care for.
Pepsidog
(6,353 posts)
allegorical oracle
(6,221 posts)don't even like children, but didn't want to concern themselves with birth control, either. They sent their husbands off to have vasectomies. So now they say they don't have any concerns with the abortion ban. If issues don't personally affect drumpsters, they don't give a hoot.
ShazzieB
(22,237 posts)Exactly. They don't have enough imagination or empathy to be able to relate to anything that doesn't affect them personally or put themselves in anyone else's shoes. They assume everyone else is the same way, due to the same lack of imagination and empathy!
Mr.Bill
(24,906 posts)won't exactly have to follow the same rules as most of us do. Abortion was always available to the rich and powerful. They don't give a shit about the peasants.
Seriously, we can all think of things where they play with a different set of rules with no consequences. It's how they live. You can start with how much taxes they pay.
pandr32
(13,821 posts)Many post menopausal 'conservative' women do support the Republicans still, in spite of their anti-woman rhetoric and policies, and in spite of increasing harm to children and families in the form of gun violence and terror. Higher housing costs and increased homelessness don't bother them either. Nor do bans on books and efforts to stifle education, access to healthcare, voting rights, and so on.
Maybe you're right--it doesn't affect them directly considering their age and likely established position in life. Why bother?
That is likely true for some. It is also likely true that right-wing media has convinced them they are being good, Christian women. So what if the once wore mini-skirts and listened to Dylan and the Grateful Dead? Protested the war? Took the pill? They aren't there anymore. Those days don't count.
I think some of the have convinced themselves they are still being rebels. They are fighting the nasty lefties.
ExWhoDoesntCare
(4,741 posts)Never were the Dylan or Grateful Dead type.
I know people like to think that every young person in the 60s was into peace love dope and protests, but that was never true. Hippies and the protest crowd were a much smaller number than is ever discussed.
I was a child then, but I have very clear memories of the era. I had cousins who were in high school and college at the time. They and their friends were clean cut kids who were total squares--no drugs, protesting, loud rebellion, ragging on their parents--none of it. I wouldn't see a hippie in real life until around 1971. They just didn't exist where I grew up.
I've had two spouses with parents who were 60s teens/young adults, none of them over 30 during the decade, and none of them--or their friends--were hippies or radicals. They attended high schools where there was never a protest, and where hippies and radicals were not the norm. My in-laws met at college, and never attended a protest. They knew of hippies during that time, but didn't associate with them. That wasn't their thing.
When they finished their educations, all of them lived much like their parents had, or like my Silent Generation mother did--get a job, get married, buy a house, raise a family. Their kids were in scouts and little league. The moms were housewives in the beginning of their marriages, but worked when times got tougher. They took vacations to Yosemite and Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. They watched Walter Cronkite every night, and Ed Sullivan on Sunday. During the housewife years, the women watched soap operas.
And here's the ultimate kicker: All of my in-laws and their friends grew up in the Bay Area, and were both of my husbands were born there, the current one growing up there! Right down the road from Berkeley, no less.
To hear the in-laws or my cousins describe the 60s, though, you'd think they did it on an entirely different planet from the mythos we all hear about the decade.
That's the 60s the traitor party women lived. Not the more famous one.
GenThePerservering
(3,164 posts)I'm not an older boomer, but I was a child during those days of rebellion and do remember them. The boomer generation were NOT dominated by hippies and free love, nor were they political rebels. It was something that many of we kids couldn't relate to, and I came from a progressive family, with a large extended family that is 90% progressive, even though I grew up in a series of small dead-end conservative towns. There was a strong movement during that time, but it was not a majority movement. It had tremendous knock-on effects on our society because it was change that was inevitable, but many people simply adapted quietly, like my family. Plenty also resisted and still do.
Every time I hear accusates of 'sell out boomers' and the rest of it, I can only assume that the accusers don't know anything, really, about that generation.
wnylib
(25,355 posts)I was 10 in 1960, graduated from high school in 1967, and was 20 in 1970. I was 13 when King gave his I Have A Dream speech in Washington, had just turned 14 when JFK was killed, was 15 when Johnson escalated troops in Vietnam, and was 18 when RFK and MLK were killed.
I grew up in a city of 130,000, more if you included the suburbs. It was in northwestern PA.
It's true that not all boomers were active in protests and demonstrations. Many who did not get involved were sympathetic to the various movements and were part of the counter culture in clothing, music, and ideas. But there were also many who ignored those things and went about their lives getting jobs, raising families, and living like their parents. Some were even Young Republicans.
In my high school (about 2400 students) a few kids wore peace symbol pendants to show their opposition to the Vietnam War. Quite a few were into weed, called pot then. All of us were very aware of anti war and civil rights movements. The majority favored civil rights. A smaller, but large group opposed the war. Most did not attend political demonstrations outside of school. We would have had to travel to do it. There were none in our city.
I remember 3 protests at school. One was a demand for the cafeteria to offer more variety besides a single hot meal. Students went on a cafeteria food strike until a la carte sandwiches, salads, and cookies were included. Another was when the girls went on strike in gym, refusing to get into the pool on pool days until it was drained, cleaned, and refilled. (It really needed the cleaning.) The third happened the year after I graduated, when my sister had just started high school. A male teacher refused to admit girls to class if they wore slacks when the dress code was changed to allow them. ALL his female students in every class, including homeroom, then deliberately wore slacks every day and stood in the hall. After a few days, the principal ordered him to admit the girls or face discipline.
In 10th grade English (1965), when we were assigned to write our own ballads, I wrote a tragic tale of death in war that clearly showed opposition to it. The teacher selected it among some other ones to read to the class. It got applause due to the topic.
But most of us were concerned with what to do after graduation - college, jobs, marriage, enlistment or how to avoid the draft. Boys who had not planned to go to college scrambled to get into one for a draft exemption. Some found girls to marry them soon after graduation for an exemption. Kids who were college bound were less concerned about it.
In my graduating class (600 kids) most were not politically active until they got to college. But there was a girl in my geometry class who was very active in the Young Republicans. That was not cool and she took a lot of ribbing from students and even from the teacher.
When I was a senior, there was a race riot at another school in town. One of my friends and her brother went to that school. He lifted her out through a first floor window and they ran home. Two students in my graduating class used the senior prom to make a political statement on social justice. The boy was black, from a working class family in a poor section of town. The girl was white, from a prominent, well off family in an old money part of town. They were the first interracial couple at the prom in the history of the school.
By the 70s, I did not know a single person my age who did not wear the bell bottom jeans, flowing tops (girls), long hair (boys and girls), beads, peace jewelry, etc. associated with the times, the politics, and hippie counterculture. They were not all active in marches, but they sympathized with them. I did not go to demonstrations, but argued the issues with adults. My boyfriend and I tutored disadvantaged kids, mostly Black, to prepare them for college.
My brother, the musician and artist in the family, went to Woodstock.
My sister's college experienced a few sit ins that blocked administration offices until student demands were at least heard. My friend who had escaped the race riot at her high school was later a student at Kent State. She went home on the weekend after campus demonstrations started getting too rough on Friday night. Her mother insisted that she stay home on Monday, too, so she was not there when the shootings took place. She knew 2 of the dead students. She transferred to another college.
On campuses, many students avoided demonstrations and concentrated on studies and getting good jobs after their degrees. So, many boomers were politically active, but many were not. The majority participated in the counter culture through music and clothes, even if they were not activists or hippie drop outs. A lot of younger boomers got into the counter culture movements as a social thing, without strong commitments to the issues or knowledge of them. They just liked having the power to rebel by joining protests.
pandr32
(13,821 posts)There is no way to deny the huge movements of the 60s-70s, though. The music, fashion, changing times were more than 'mythos'.
I have met many boomer women on the right. I worked as a delegate for Hillary Clinton and was shocked to hear how many women (can't forget the men, too) had walked a different path in their younger years and then, one step at a time through jobs, families, media, etc. shifted their political and cultural views. The right-wing media has played a huge part in that.
justgamma
(3,691 posts)there's a man who is forced to pay child support. Young men better care.
BOSSHOG
(44,738 posts)On an election to ban abortion last summer. A primary election in which the ban had no party opponent. Conservatives got their asses kicked.
If they succeeded I would appreciate real Christian’s insisting that religious organizations foot the bill for the first 20 years of that persons life. Or, let’s do away with the separation nonsense and turn loose the assessors. The Catholic Churchs number one goal is fundraising. Number two, codifying their beliefs. Everything comes in the also ran category.
I’m a recovering catholic.
And yes justgamma, sperm donors are hardly mentioned in abortion conversations one way or the other. Zealots don’t need them to attempt to control and hurt women and girls.
Demobrat
(10,264 posts)In reality we all know women who are the sole support of their children.
It’s not that hard for men to weasel out of child support. They just don’t pay, and what happens? Nothing.
It’s harder for the man if he works at a job where his wages can be garnished, but when he’s in a trade where he can work under the table the woman is just out of luck. And of course she has to find him.
There’s a reason we never hear any discussion about who is going to pay for all these unwanted children. It’s a given. The woman is.
NullTuples
(6,017 posts)
barbtries
(31,147 posts)they're not big on thinking things through.
BlueWaveNeverEnd
(12,996 posts)with the attacks on abortion and transgender staff... with all these laws "you can't do this, you can't do that..".
Don't have to be childbearing age woman or transgender to be ToTALLY OUTRAGED
Buckeyeblue
(6,211 posts)My guess is their models didn't figure strong defiance into the equation. If they did, the legislation leading to Dobbs would have been pulled back.
For years Republicans haven't had to defend their stance on abortion. Because with Roe in place, it was purely hypothetical. It's hard to get the average person excited about what could happen. But now that we are in the post-Roe world, the hypothetical is now the reality. All the things we've said would happen on this site are reality. It might even be worse.
Now the issue has been flipped. People are not ashamed to be pro-abortion. It's the most important issue of 2024. We might even have some surprising election outcomes.
milestogo
(22,645 posts)that things were pretty bad before abortion was legalized realize what has been lost.
Puppyjive
(923 posts)They want to keep their base dumb. They have much more control over dumb people. Ignorance is what gets them elected and those that elect them suffer the consequences.
republianmushroom
(22,125 posts)electric_blue68
(26,031 posts)so I am pro-choice.
I remain furious when I think on how many of my women sisters in general have had their lives drastically changed in some places now. Who also might be affected in the future.
I think all my affected cousins live in blue States. A few I've never met.
Demobrat
(10,264 posts)Abortion was safe and legal when I needed one, and I have always been grateful for that. I want that for all women. It’s not complicated.
Joinfortmill
(20,168 posts)krkaufman
(13,957 posts)Could be they just figure they’ll take a short term hit, but gerrymandering and having packed the courts will prove a sufficient edge to retain power and continue minority rule.
MOMFUDSKI
(7,080 posts)experience the trauma their daughters and granddaughters will be going through trying to find medical care for miscarriages, rapes, non-viable fetuses, etc. they will come to our side. That will be the hard way for them but time is on our side. I have an ex-friend (trumper who I just had to walk away from) with 2 twenty-something granddaughters in their peak childbearing years. It will take the shit hitting the fan up in Wisconsin for her to finally get it. The repub disease is not being able to see past their nose. Time wounds all heels.
milestogo
(22,645 posts)Everyone knows someone who has had an ectopic pregnancy, or whose water broke early, or who was told it would endanger their health to carry a pregnancy to term... Its not something that only happens to other people.
applegrove
(130,478 posts)empathy. The vast majority of people have it. Sure some can be mislead for a time. Humans are mostly good when led by a good egg like Biden.
Arthur_Frain
(2,268 posts)But no, they will tell you they’re playing the “long game” but all of their solutions to complex problems are simple and inadequate, usually causing more problems than they solve, assuming there was really a problem at all.
GenThePerservering
(3,164 posts)with 40 years of dumbing down. But they also got dumbed down, and now they're gambling with a lot of wooden nickles.
GoodRaisin
(10,748 posts)The only thing their voters care about is the “R” beside the candidate’s name.
Lottie Dah
(4 posts)I am well into my "Senior years", but back in the day my first pregnancy was ectopic (ruptured). With three units of blood, emergency surgery and a quick thinking, caring doctor I survived. My following pregnancies were miscarriages. This issue goes beyond abortion, I wish they would add "women's health" to the abortion title.
marble falls
(71,161 posts)
Rhiannon12866
(250,656 posts)I am so sorry that you went through so much and welcome to DU.
MMBeilis
(455 posts)Kaleva
(40,225 posts)Then there's MTG and a slew of Republican women holding office.
inthewind21
(4,616 posts)I think republicans never thought ROE would ever be gutted. For decades they campaigned on it, but never really did anything about it. It was the mother of all wedge issues for them. Now, they are the dog that finally caught the car and they aren't sure what to do now.
Mad_Machine76
(24,936 posts)Just like with Bush II's Social Security privatization push, they repeatedly assume that most of the country thinks like they do, that if they only care about things if it affects *them* or a friend or family member. They obviously can't fathom that people would actually care about other people, just as a matter of being human, which just further goes to show how they don't actually believe in all of the religious sophistry they're constantly spouting and acting like they embrace.
ShazzieB
(22,237 posts)I was 22 when the Roe decision was handed down, and I remember quite clearly what a BFD it was. I had flown from Illinois to New York to have a legal abortion only 4 months previously, and I was very happy to know that women weren't going to have to do that sort of thing anymore, even though it was a little too late for me.
I eventually had a daughter and was able to raise her secure in the knowledge that abortion would (presumably) be readily available if she ever needed one. The idea of going back enrages me! She's 37 now, and we both live in a state that is firmly in the "keep abortion safe and legal" camp, but I no longer have any illusions that this is something any of us can take for granted.
The idea that the Repukes would think women like me, who grew up pre-Roe and then spent 50 years in a country where abortion was legal, would uncomplainingly accept anything less for our daughters, granddaughters, nieces, grandnieces, and all the younger wonen who are not related to us, is ludicrous and stupid. But then, Repukes are stupid, so what can I say? 
Liberal In Texas
(16,007 posts)If abortion is made illegal they don't care because they won't ever need one.
If social security is cut they don't care because they've been promised that the cuts won't be for them because they're already on it and are grandfathered in.
Right now Abbott (gov. Tx) is trying to have a corporate welfare school voucher law passed. It's failing. It's failing because the repubs in the small and rural communities realize that they will not benefit from it and it will even hurt them due to the loss of revenue for public schools and the subsequent loss of jobs in their area. (Public schools are sometimes the biggest employer in some counties.) But see, it could hurt them, so they don't want this idealistic libertarian nonsense.
GoCubsGo
(34,681 posts)they can no longer bear children. So, yes. I would not be at all surprised if a bunch of them do feel that we stop caring after that. I guess they don't see us partying because we no longer have to deal with periods or fears of unwanted pregnancies?