Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
marmar
marmar's Journal
marmar's Journal
June 27, 2022
What Protestors Said Outside the Supreme Court This Weekend
“Repeat after me: Misoprostol.”
BY MOLLY OLMSTEAD
JUNE 27, 20225:45 AM
(Slate) The day after Roe v. Wade was struck down, hundreds of people rallied in front of the Supreme Court building in Washington. A small number of anti-abortion protesters were there to celebrate, but mostly the crowd was protesting the choice, by the Supreme Court, to summarily strip Americans of reproductive rights.
One of the speakers, her voice amplified over the heads of onlookers, expressed her frustration with Congress, saying there was little reason to hope that elected Democrats would do anything to help protect reproductive rights. So she had come with a different message.
“Repeat after me,” she said into a microphone. “Misoprostol.”
The crowd yelled the medication name back at her.
“We sometimes call it mEYE-so, or miso, like the soup,” she added. “It’s safer than Tylenol.” ................(more)
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/roe-dobbs-abortion-scotus-protests.html
What Protestors Said Outside the Supreme Court This Weekend
What Protestors Said Outside the Supreme Court This Weekend
“Repeat after me: Misoprostol.”
BY MOLLY OLMSTEAD
JUNE 27, 20225:45 AM
(Slate) The day after Roe v. Wade was struck down, hundreds of people rallied in front of the Supreme Court building in Washington. A small number of anti-abortion protesters were there to celebrate, but mostly the crowd was protesting the choice, by the Supreme Court, to summarily strip Americans of reproductive rights.
One of the speakers, her voice amplified over the heads of onlookers, expressed her frustration with Congress, saying there was little reason to hope that elected Democrats would do anything to help protect reproductive rights. So she had come with a different message.
“Repeat after me,” she said into a microphone. “Misoprostol.”
The crowd yelled the medication name back at her.
“We sometimes call it mEYE-so, or miso, like the soup,” she added. “It’s safer than Tylenol.” ................(more)
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/roe-dobbs-abortion-scotus-protests.html
June 27, 2022
(Guardian UK) Authorities in Beijing have sparked confusion and alarm after announcing the strict zero-Covid policy could be in place for the next five years, including mass mandatory testing and travel restrictions.
The notice, published on Monday afternoon, was attributed to Cai Qi, the Beijing secretary of the Chinese Communist party. The original text said: “In the next five years, Beijing will unremittingly grasp the normalisation of epidemic prevention and control.”
The notice was first posted by Beijing Daily and republished by other state media outlets. It spread widely across social media, but soon the reference to “five years” was removed from most online publications, and a related hashtag on Weibo was deleted.
It committed to maintain and improve the city’s “strict management of the joint prevention and control coordination mechanism”, and the emergency response system, including those designed to shut down circulation and transfer of the virus through “isolation, management and control… as soon as [transmissions] appear”. It also noted the continuation of strict residential inspections, the “normalisation” of regular testing, and the management of entry and exit to the city. ....................(more)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/27/alarm-in-beijing-after-announcement-zero-covid-policy-may-last-five-years
Alarm in Beijing after announcement zero-Covid policy may last five years
(Guardian UK) Authorities in Beijing have sparked confusion and alarm after announcing the strict zero-Covid policy could be in place for the next five years, including mass mandatory testing and travel restrictions.
The notice, published on Monday afternoon, was attributed to Cai Qi, the Beijing secretary of the Chinese Communist party. The original text said: “In the next five years, Beijing will unremittingly grasp the normalisation of epidemic prevention and control.”
The notice was first posted by Beijing Daily and republished by other state media outlets. It spread widely across social media, but soon the reference to “five years” was removed from most online publications, and a related hashtag on Weibo was deleted.
It committed to maintain and improve the city’s “strict management of the joint prevention and control coordination mechanism”, and the emergency response system, including those designed to shut down circulation and transfer of the virus through “isolation, management and control… as soon as [transmissions] appear”. It also noted the continuation of strict residential inspections, the “normalisation” of regular testing, and the management of entry and exit to the city. ....................(more)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/27/alarm-in-beijing-after-announcement-zero-covid-policy-may-last-five-years
June 27, 2022
We need to talk about whiteness — and then we need to dismantle it
An encounter with the police when I was 16 played out in my favor because of my race. Here's why it stuck with me
By BAYNARD WOODS
PUBLISHED JUNE 26, 2022 12:00PM
Excerpted from "Inheritance: An Autobiography of Whiteness" by Baynard Woods to be published by Legacy Lit on June 28, 2022
I was 16 years old, I was white, and I was drunk in the back of a police car. The radio squawked. But I was silent.
I had spent the rainy day with a couple buddies drinking beer and that afternoon, when the car in front of me stopped at a yellow light, my car didn't, and I crashed into it.
The driver of that car was an elderly Black man. He didn't seem to be hurt, but my old Volkswagen bug was wrapped around his bumper, and the sheriff's deputy knew I had been drinking. I was in big trouble.
Then, the driver's window of the sheriff's car darkened with the shadow of someone standing there, rapping against the glass. It was my grandfather, who asked for a moment alone with the deputy, whom he knew. A few minutes later, the deputy said he would write up the accident as driving too fast for conditions.
My grandfather was not unique in possessing the power he had as a wealthy, white man in Greenville, South Carolina. We called it the Good Ole Boy System, but it was, in fact, a web of white men looking out for each other. Nor was that system unique to Greenville. Though my family had nowhere near as much money or power as the Murdough family in Beaufort County, SC, the viral unraveling of the impunity surrounding that family's viral saga makes it clear how smoothly the system functioned — up to a certain point — in other times and places.
In that moment, I didn't think of myself as a racist. I wasn't actively trying to harm the Black driver. I held no personal animus against him and yet I was participating in white supremacy. All it required was my silence and my feigned ignorance and I was happy to oblige. I didn't like talking about my whiteness but I was happy to partake of its privileges. But that moment stuck with me, because I couldn't help but realize that race played a significant role in the way an encounter played out. ..............(more)
https://www.salon.com/2022/06/26/we-need-to-talk-about-whiteness-and-then-we-need-to-dismantle-it/
We need to talk about whiteness -- and then we need to dismantle it
We need to talk about whiteness — and then we need to dismantle it
An encounter with the police when I was 16 played out in my favor because of my race. Here's why it stuck with me
By BAYNARD WOODS
PUBLISHED JUNE 26, 2022 12:00PM
Excerpted from "Inheritance: An Autobiography of Whiteness" by Baynard Woods to be published by Legacy Lit on June 28, 2022
I was 16 years old, I was white, and I was drunk in the back of a police car. The radio squawked. But I was silent.
I had spent the rainy day with a couple buddies drinking beer and that afternoon, when the car in front of me stopped at a yellow light, my car didn't, and I crashed into it.
The driver of that car was an elderly Black man. He didn't seem to be hurt, but my old Volkswagen bug was wrapped around his bumper, and the sheriff's deputy knew I had been drinking. I was in big trouble.
Then, the driver's window of the sheriff's car darkened with the shadow of someone standing there, rapping against the glass. It was my grandfather, who asked for a moment alone with the deputy, whom he knew. A few minutes later, the deputy said he would write up the accident as driving too fast for conditions.
My grandfather was not unique in possessing the power he had as a wealthy, white man in Greenville, South Carolina. We called it the Good Ole Boy System, but it was, in fact, a web of white men looking out for each other. Nor was that system unique to Greenville. Though my family had nowhere near as much money or power as the Murdough family in Beaufort County, SC, the viral unraveling of the impunity surrounding that family's viral saga makes it clear how smoothly the system functioned — up to a certain point — in other times and places.
In that moment, I didn't think of myself as a racist. I wasn't actively trying to harm the Black driver. I held no personal animus against him and yet I was participating in white supremacy. All it required was my silence and my feigned ignorance and I was happy to oblige. I didn't like talking about my whiteness but I was happy to partake of its privileges. But that moment stuck with me, because I couldn't help but realize that race played a significant role in the way an encounter played out. ..............(more)
https://www.salon.com/2022/06/26/we-need-to-talk-about-whiteness-and-then-we-need-to-dismantle-it/
June 27, 2022
(Bloomberg) -- Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a pioneer in the US fight for marriage equality, warned that same-sex couples may be next to lose rights after the nation’s top court overturned the landmark Roe V. Wade decision.
Nessel, Michigan’s first openly gay statewide office holder and a key player in the US Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, said Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion in Friday’s anti-Roe decision presents “an invitation” to opponents of marriage equality. She also said the court has devolved into a “partisan tool.”
“It’s going to do even more damage to the United States Supreme Court. Nobody is going to respect their rulings,” Nessel, a Democrat, told reporters after speaking on the steps of the state capitol in Lansing at a Pride rally Sunday. “I don’t know that people respect their rulings right now because everyone sees it as being so hyper-political. And there was a time that the United States Supreme Court was just not viewed as simply a partisan tool.” ................(more)
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/michigan-top-lawyer-warns-same-210140288.html
Michigan AG Dana Nessel warns that marriage equality is under threat, calls SC "partisan tool"
(Bloomberg) -- Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a pioneer in the US fight for marriage equality, warned that same-sex couples may be next to lose rights after the nation’s top court overturned the landmark Roe V. Wade decision.
Nessel, Michigan’s first openly gay statewide office holder and a key player in the US Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, said Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion in Friday’s anti-Roe decision presents “an invitation” to opponents of marriage equality. She also said the court has devolved into a “partisan tool.”
“It’s going to do even more damage to the United States Supreme Court. Nobody is going to respect their rulings,” Nessel, a Democrat, told reporters after speaking on the steps of the state capitol in Lansing at a Pride rally Sunday. “I don’t know that people respect their rulings right now because everyone sees it as being so hyper-political. And there was a time that the United States Supreme Court was just not viewed as simply a partisan tool.” ................(more)
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/michigan-top-lawyer-warns-same-210140288.html
June 26, 2022
(HuffPost) A Canadian woman barely avoided death and serious injuries after lying down for a rest on train tracks in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, on Thursday, The Canadian Press reported.
The woman came within inches of getting hit by the train, Prince Albert Deputy Fire Chief Alex Paul said. The situation could have been fatal if the train had not quickly hit its breaks, he said.
“The train coming along, at the last minute realized that it was a person on the tracks and they applied the emergency brake,” Paul said. “The locomotive came to a stop just a little bit over the top of the person, so there was no actual contact.”
The woman was brought to the hospital with only minor injuries, according to the official.
Paul reiterated that it isn’t safe to walk near train tracks. There were 39 trespasser fatalities in 2020, according to the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, CTV News reported. ....................(more)
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/woman-asleep-train-tracks-avoids-serious-injuries_n_62b7e7fce4b04a61736b72ff?
Canadian Woman Who Fell Asleep On Train Tracks Dodges Serious Injuries
(HuffPost) A Canadian woman barely avoided death and serious injuries after lying down for a rest on train tracks in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, on Thursday, The Canadian Press reported.
The woman came within inches of getting hit by the train, Prince Albert Deputy Fire Chief Alex Paul said. The situation could have been fatal if the train had not quickly hit its breaks, he said.
“The train coming along, at the last minute realized that it was a person on the tracks and they applied the emergency brake,” Paul said. “The locomotive came to a stop just a little bit over the top of the person, so there was no actual contact.”
The woman was brought to the hospital with only minor injuries, according to the official.
Paul reiterated that it isn’t safe to walk near train tracks. There were 39 trespasser fatalities in 2020, according to the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, CTV News reported. ....................(more)
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/woman-asleep-train-tracks-avoids-serious-injuries_n_62b7e7fce4b04a61736b72ff?
June 26, 2022
America's bishops pushed hard for the end of Roe. Now they call for unity and healing. What reality is that?
By CELIA VIGGO WEXLER
PUBLISHED JUNE 26, 2022 6:00AM
(Salon) In 1974, the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, then president of the University of Notre Dame, warned Roman Catholics against ceding the abortion debate to "crude zealots who have neither good judgment, sophistication of procedure nor the modicum of civility needed for the rational discussion of disagreements in a pluralistic democracy."
This week, the "crude zealots" won. America's Catholic bishops are doing a victory lap over this decision. Four of the five justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade were conservative Catholics. (Chief Justice John Roberts, also a conservative Catholic, voted to uphold the Mississippi abortion ban at issue in the Dobbs case, but did not support overturning Roe outright.)
The bishops have been pushing for the overturn of Roe for decades, and many of them were glad to overlook Donald Trump's moral lapses because he declared himself anti-abortion. In his single term (at least so far), Trump, with the help of then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, kept his promise and larded the court with three conservative justices eager to reverse 50 years of court precedent.
Now these same church leaders are calling on Americans to unite, and for dissension to end. "It is a time for healing wounds and repairing social divisions," the bishops wrote in a statement. "It is a time for reasoned reflection and civil dialogue, and for coming together to build a society and economy that supports marriages and families, and where every woman has the support and resources she needs to bring her child into this world in love."
What planet do they live on, to suggest that such an outcome is remotely plausible? Strife will just devolve to the states. Indeed, a 2021 investigation by the National Catholic Reporter found that major anti-abortion groups were funding voter suppression efforts in key states, endorsing Donald Trump's Big Lie and pushing for future Republican victories. That doesn't sound like "coming together" to me. ..............(more)
https://www.salon.com/2022/06/26/catholic-bishops-celebrate-a-big-win-but-as-they-have-sowed-so-shall-they-reap/
Catholic bishops celebrate a big win: But as they have sowed, so shall they reap
Catholic bishops celebrate a big win: But as they have sowed, so shall they reapAmerica's bishops pushed hard for the end of Roe. Now they call for unity and healing. What reality is that?
By CELIA VIGGO WEXLER
PUBLISHED JUNE 26, 2022 6:00AM
(Salon) In 1974, the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, then president of the University of Notre Dame, warned Roman Catholics against ceding the abortion debate to "crude zealots who have neither good judgment, sophistication of procedure nor the modicum of civility needed for the rational discussion of disagreements in a pluralistic democracy."
This week, the "crude zealots" won. America's Catholic bishops are doing a victory lap over this decision. Four of the five justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade were conservative Catholics. (Chief Justice John Roberts, also a conservative Catholic, voted to uphold the Mississippi abortion ban at issue in the Dobbs case, but did not support overturning Roe outright.)
The bishops have been pushing for the overturn of Roe for decades, and many of them were glad to overlook Donald Trump's moral lapses because he declared himself anti-abortion. In his single term (at least so far), Trump, with the help of then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, kept his promise and larded the court with three conservative justices eager to reverse 50 years of court precedent.
Now these same church leaders are calling on Americans to unite, and for dissension to end. "It is a time for healing wounds and repairing social divisions," the bishops wrote in a statement. "It is a time for reasoned reflection and civil dialogue, and for coming together to build a society and economy that supports marriages and families, and where every woman has the support and resources she needs to bring her child into this world in love."
What planet do they live on, to suggest that such an outcome is remotely plausible? Strife will just devolve to the states. Indeed, a 2021 investigation by the National Catholic Reporter found that major anti-abortion groups were funding voter suppression efforts in key states, endorsing Donald Trump's Big Lie and pushing for future Republican victories. That doesn't sound like "coming together" to me. ..............(more)
https://www.salon.com/2022/06/26/catholic-bishops-celebrate-a-big-win-but-as-they-have-sowed-so-shall-they-reap/
June 25, 2022
The sanitization of abortion talk is over.
BY CHRISTINA CAUTERUCCI
JUNE 25, 20225:45 AM
(Slate) Unless you have a time machine, the best way to understand the era before modern medicine is to watch Republican legislators discuss abortion.
In recent years, as they have proposed more and more restrictions on reproductive rights, they have had plenty of opportunities to air their shockingly primitive theories of the female body. An Idaho lawmaker suggested in 2015 that the uterus could be accessed within the digestive tract. A Texas regulator said in 2016 that abortions are performed by “cutting open people’s bodies”—as if the uterus, even with its ready-made exit route through the vagina, required an incision to retrieve its contents. And, of course, who could forget the Missouri congressman who claimed in 2012 that “legitimate rape” victims cannot get pregnant because “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down”?
None of these would-be gaffes have dissuaded anti-abortion advocates from telling doctors what kind of care they can provide, and to which patients, and when. The human body as it exists outside the womb—its pain, its mess, its inconvenient and unpredictable foibles and realities—have always been beside the point of abortion bans.
But in the imminent wave of destruction wrought by the dismantling of Roe, the pregnant body will be ground zero. And understanding the complex realities of a pregnant body has never been more crucial.
Laws written by ideologues with no medical training, who invent imaginary procedures to dispel concerns about the hazards to women’s health, will determine how quickly a potentially fatal ectopic pregnancy can be treated. Coroners will paw through sewage to assess fetal remains from miscarriages. Women with wanted pregnancies will learn they are gestating a fetus with a critical anomaly and, months later, labor under coercion for hours, only to push out an infant without the necessary body parts to survive. There will be untreated infections; life-threatening spikes in blood pressure; bodies obliged to carry high-risk triplets instead of twins; and dangerous, desperate attempts at self-induced abortion, which will multiply as legislators crack down on the dissemination of abortion information. ...........(more)
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/dobbs-abortion-bloody-consequences.html
America Is About to Confront the Bloody Consequences of Banning Abortion
America Is About to Confront the Bloody Consequences of Banning AbortionThe sanitization of abortion talk is over.
BY CHRISTINA CAUTERUCCI
JUNE 25, 20225:45 AM
(Slate) Unless you have a time machine, the best way to understand the era before modern medicine is to watch Republican legislators discuss abortion.
In recent years, as they have proposed more and more restrictions on reproductive rights, they have had plenty of opportunities to air their shockingly primitive theories of the female body. An Idaho lawmaker suggested in 2015 that the uterus could be accessed within the digestive tract. A Texas regulator said in 2016 that abortions are performed by “cutting open people’s bodies”—as if the uterus, even with its ready-made exit route through the vagina, required an incision to retrieve its contents. And, of course, who could forget the Missouri congressman who claimed in 2012 that “legitimate rape” victims cannot get pregnant because “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down”?
None of these would-be gaffes have dissuaded anti-abortion advocates from telling doctors what kind of care they can provide, and to which patients, and when. The human body as it exists outside the womb—its pain, its mess, its inconvenient and unpredictable foibles and realities—have always been beside the point of abortion bans.
But in the imminent wave of destruction wrought by the dismantling of Roe, the pregnant body will be ground zero. And understanding the complex realities of a pregnant body has never been more crucial.
Laws written by ideologues with no medical training, who invent imaginary procedures to dispel concerns about the hazards to women’s health, will determine how quickly a potentially fatal ectopic pregnancy can be treated. Coroners will paw through sewage to assess fetal remains from miscarriages. Women with wanted pregnancies will learn they are gestating a fetus with a critical anomaly and, months later, labor under coercion for hours, only to push out an infant without the necessary body parts to survive. There will be untreated infections; life-threatening spikes in blood pressure; bodies obliged to carry high-risk triplets instead of twins; and dangerous, desperate attempts at self-induced abortion, which will multiply as legislators crack down on the dissemination of abortion information. ...........(more)
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/dobbs-abortion-bloody-consequences.html
June 25, 2022
(Detroit Metro Times) Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is urging the Michigan Supreme Court to “immediately” decide whether the state constitution protects abortion rights after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade on Friday.
In the motion, attorneys for Whitmer say the court’s insight is “urgently needed.”
Michigan is one of 26 states with a law banning abortion. The state’s 1931 abortion ban was invalidated when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of abortion rights in Roe v. Wade in 1973. But now that the case has been overturned, the 1931 ban could go back into effect.
Last month, a Michigan Court of Claims judge issued a preliminary injunction against the 1931 law in response to a Planned Parenthood of Michigan lawsuit that argues the state’s constitution protects abortion rights. Judge Elizabeth Gleicher said Planned Parenthood is likely to prevail in its lawsuit.
But the injunction is temporary.
....(snip)....
“So long as this uncertainty persists, it will work to deny Michiganders their rights under the Michigan Constitution and have profound and irreversible consequences on Michiganders’ lives,” the motion states. “This Court is the only forum with the power to fully resolve that uncertainty and conclusively settle whether Michigan’s criminal abortion ban.” .........(more)
https://www.metrotimes.com/news/whitmer-implores-michigan-supreme-court-to-decide-whether-state-constitution-protects-abortion-rights-30397833
Whitmer implores Michigan Supreme Court to decide whether state constitution protects abortion right
(Detroit Metro Times) Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is urging the Michigan Supreme Court to “immediately” decide whether the state constitution protects abortion rights after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade on Friday.
In the motion, attorneys for Whitmer say the court’s insight is “urgently needed.”
Michigan is one of 26 states with a law banning abortion. The state’s 1931 abortion ban was invalidated when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of abortion rights in Roe v. Wade in 1973. But now that the case has been overturned, the 1931 ban could go back into effect.
Last month, a Michigan Court of Claims judge issued a preliminary injunction against the 1931 law in response to a Planned Parenthood of Michigan lawsuit that argues the state’s constitution protects abortion rights. Judge Elizabeth Gleicher said Planned Parenthood is likely to prevail in its lawsuit.
But the injunction is temporary.
....(snip)....
“So long as this uncertainty persists, it will work to deny Michiganders their rights under the Michigan Constitution and have profound and irreversible consequences on Michiganders’ lives,” the motion states. “This Court is the only forum with the power to fully resolve that uncertainty and conclusively settle whether Michigan’s criminal abortion ban.” .........(more)
https://www.metrotimes.com/news/whitmer-implores-michigan-supreme-court-to-decide-whether-state-constitution-protects-abortion-rights-30397833
June 25, 2022
(CBC News) A U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn constitutional protections for abortion has left some Canadian observers concerned for those who will struggle to access services they may urgently need in the wake of the ruling.
The decision from the top U.S. court had been forecasted weeks ago, when a draft version was leaked to the media.
But the ruling has set off so-called trigger laws in at least 13 states, banning or severely limiting access to abortion there.
"I think it really sets the United States of America up as a kind of outlier in the Western world," said Noreen Golfman, a Canadian academic who helped set up the first abortion clinic in Newfoundland and Labrador more than three decades ago.
"It's not just sending women's rights backwards, it's like sending the whole country backwards in so many ways." .............(more)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/us-supreme-court-roe-wade-overturned-canada-reaction-1.6500487
Canadians concerned for Americans who may lack abortion access in wake of top court ruling
(CBC News) A U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn constitutional protections for abortion has left some Canadian observers concerned for those who will struggle to access services they may urgently need in the wake of the ruling.
The decision from the top U.S. court had been forecasted weeks ago, when a draft version was leaked to the media.
But the ruling has set off so-called trigger laws in at least 13 states, banning or severely limiting access to abortion there.
"I think it really sets the United States of America up as a kind of outlier in the Western world," said Noreen Golfman, a Canadian academic who helped set up the first abortion clinic in Newfoundland and Labrador more than three decades ago.
"It's not just sending women's rights backwards, it's like sending the whole country backwards in so many ways." .............(more)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/us-supreme-court-roe-wade-overturned-canada-reaction-1.6500487
