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Protesters march to support the right to an abortion
By adamg on Tue, 05/03/2022 - 9:46pm
Adriana Lacy watched the large pro-abortion march down Tremont Street after a rally at the State House:
walking home and ran into a pretty sizable pro-abortion march downtown heading down tremont street @universalhub pic.twitter.com/YslIKrlqA0
— Adriana Lacy (@Adriana_Lacy) May 3, 2022
At Holy Name Rotary in West Roxbury, a smaller group, of about a dozen people, held signs during the evening rush hour:
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Visiting Fayetteville Arkansas
and there was a protest just as large at the county courthouse here this evening!
Elections matter more
I don't criticize the protesters but the GOP has been successful because they've targeted every level of government: local councilors and mayors, state reps, etc. They've also fined tuned their messaging of outrage, fear, and resentment which has resinated among the people who show up to vote for these offices.
If the right to abortion, education, equality, etc matter, the Democrats really need to up their game. Protesting without electoral results is wasted effort.
At this rate, in 2025 abortion will be banned nationwide.
Don't disagree, but...
visibility also matters. It's important that we protest these decisions and spread the word in order to energize the pro-choice electorate.
Maybe
Since 2016 there's been a ton of huge, visible protests. And what has it gotten? Row v Wade is gone, the Democrats greatly underperformed in 2020, all indications are that GOP will have a super majority by 2025, and racist laws/policies are stronger than ever.
If people find protesting to be fulfilling, they should keep doing so. But in my lifetime I haven't seen any indication they are successful in creating meaningful, lasting political change.
Not as much as you think
That was true once. Now? Not as much as you think. Given the current state of affairs, given voter suppression, packing and cracking, intimidation of election officials and outright attempts to steal elections, we cannot rely on elections. We cannot vote our way out of this. We need other tools.
Other tools?
What other tools? Overthrow the government?
Claiming elections don't matter is the absolute worst thing you can think. The GOP has risen to power specifically because they have been much better at getting their supporters to vote. And every time they win, they become more powerful and make them more intrenched.
Democrats need to reverse the trend by spending a lot more time competing seriously for local elections including focusing on polling data and not just activists. Any Democrat is better than any Republican, even if that Dem is viewed as too centrist or conservative in the eyes of activists.
Nothing is more frustrating than people who are apathetic and claim elections are a lost cause. Legal power in this country rests with people who win elections, not those who have the biggest protests. Judges are appointed so the legal system isn’t the solution without winning elections too.
do elections really matter?
59% of the public opposes the repeal of Roe.
may i remind you that sam alito’s appointment is a direct result of bush v. gore?
a republican presidential candidate hasn’t won a popular vote in like 30 years, yet here we are.
Trump appointed THREE anti-abortion, conservative judges.
Trump won in part because idiots got mad Sanders didn't win the primary and refuses to vote for Clinton. Some even voted for Trump.
If 59% of the public went to polls and voted Democratic, Abortion would still be legal nationwide.
Elections are all that matters.
“idiots”
the party unambiguously cleared out the field by getting behind Clinton early. you can argue til you’re blue in the face about whether or not it was the right decision, but to call people idiots because they were being asked to vote for a candidate they didn’t like – especially when it appeared that their candidate would have fared better versus Trump – is the height of elitism.
also, let’s be clear: Trump got *two* appointments fair and square. had Garland been allowed a hearing, we may not have even gotten Trump to begin with.
Yes, they are iditots
They voted against their own interests. Anyone who didn't vote for Clinton was voting for someone with tremendous power who was openly opposed to abortion rights. (And most human rights, for that matter.)
If you could have voted in 2016 for Clinton in the general election, but did not, you are partially to blame for the loss of Abortion rights.
voting for Hillary
... would have been voting against their own interests. the party ostensibly steered the vote towards her to make sure mainstream voters wouldn't abstain since a vote for Sanders would have been against *their* interests!
again, you can argue about whether or not it was the right choice, but i would bet my bottom dollar you would still be railing against the people you call "idiots" had Bernie won the primary but lost the election.
the Democratic party isn't in a bind because progressives have hijacked the party; it's because the party truly does not represent leftists, but they need to balance their disdain for progressive ideals against paying lip service to them.
Unicorn Candidate
In my earlier years, I had hope that one day there will be a Presidential candidate who would represent my stance on all the issues. Also a candidate as pure as the driven snow with no morally ambiguous affiliations or campaign money.
Then I learned my lesson from disappointing election cycle after election cycle. Now, I don’t vote for my candidate. I hold my nose and vote to block their candidate. I wish I could hang onto that hope but the election machine just grinds it away.
Don't be so sure it's about voter participation
That's not entirely correct. Yes, the GOP is good at getting out their base, but that doesn't bring voting majorities. Most people in this country did not vote for Republican senators and representatives, but gerrymandering and the inherently undemocratic process for apportioning senate seats leaves us with a virtual tie. If Congress represented how people actually vote, it would look like this:
House: D-221, R-207, I-7
Senate: D-53, R-42, I-5
As for the presidency, Republicans have won the popular vote once in the past 8 elections, yet held the office for 3 terms. Our system is strongly biased in favor of land over people, and therefore in favor of a minority party exercising outsized influence. That's what is happening more so than a failure of Democrats to vote.
Yeah, it's a steeper hill
No question, it's a lot harder to win elections as a result of absolutely horrible "compromises" made before any of us were born. But if you want to change that, elections need to be won.
As I keep typing, it's more than just US Congress. States still have a lot of power and ignoring state races in favor of high profile national races is a failure the Democrats make over and over.
Come on
Indeed, it would be, if I thought that and had said so. I did not.
The Democratic Party has promoted lightweight political participation through daft campaigns such as "vote Blue no matter who", which enable passivity and opting out of the political process in ways that really matter. The Democratic Party is afraid to use any tools other than electoral politics, and you know what they say what happens when your only tool is a hammer.
Nothing is more futile than people who claim that elections are the only tool in the toolbox, and who persist in doing so even as this tool is made progressively less effective.
In Theory, Elections matter more
But even with Democrats in charge of the house, senate and the presidency they just sit on their hands, muttering about Manchin/Sinema. They have no new plan other than "vote harder."
Meanwhile, they allow the minority party to take away basic rights, including the right to vote. The learned helplessness of the supposed liberal party in the face of fascism is unconscionable.
Biden has appointed a ton of Judges
Which is extremely important and wouldn’t have happened without Manchin and Sinema.
They're not wrong about Manchin/Sinema though?
I mean, I agree it's frustrating to watch, but it's not clear to me what else the Democrats in Congress could be doing here. It's also weird that we've collectively decided to blame the entire Democratic Party for this rather than the specific 52 Senators who are the ones actually blocking any changes.
We Know Who The Enemies Are
I no longer expect the republican party to be anything but the undemocratic party of white supremacy. No one on the left needs to be told how much they suck.
In response, the Democrats need to get creative, using all legal means to put the brakes on this erosion of rights including executive orders, daily hearings, enforcement of subpoenas, hell simply NOT campaigning for openly corrupt anti-choice democrats in Texas, as Pelosi is doing TODAY, would be a start.
Instead...they are doing...what exactly?
It's more than undemocratic white
supremacy. It's anti-democratic Christian white supremacy, attempting to impose the religious views of a minority on the rest of the country. This is a radical rejection of the Founders' principal of church / state separation.
End the filibuster
End the filibuster. And if Manchin and Sinema won't go along, well, I don't see any particular reason why they need to be supported and coddled as they have been. There is pressure that can be brought to bear on them, so let's see them pay the price for their obstructionism.
What pressure?
Manchin votes mostly along Democratic party lines. You think his GOP replacement would do the same?
Democrats need to learn from Manchin. He's a popular democrat in a deep red state. He's learned how to appeal to the people who vote in West Virginia. (He doesn't give a shit about voters in Massachusetts. Why should he?)
If the Democrats had a few more people like him (Dems in red states), they wouldn't be in this 50/50 mess.
Let me put this succintly
Senator Manchin is an openly corrupt piece of garbage who is enjoying his time in the limelight as the swing vote. He stands for nothing except for his own enrichment at the expense of the struggling citizens of his state.
He revels in killing Biden's major bills, drawing them out over months by pretending to negotiate and then pulling his support at the last minute. He brags about this in public! He revels in his position as the chief "no" vote on any environmental progress, further damning his constituents and everyone else's constituents children to a nightmare future of world environmental catastrophe.
The only thing democrats should learn from Manchin is to extricate themselves, as the majority party, from the position when they are beholden to festering old white kleptocrats like Joe Manchin. If they don't do this, things are going to get very, very ugly.
How can you be so blind?
If it wasn't for Manchin, the Democrats would be in the minority in the Senate and Biden wouldn't have gotten a single judge appointed.
I think just as poorly of Manchin as you do but he won an election unlike almost every other Democrat in a state carried by Trump.
If you want Manchin out, go make your case to the voters of West Virginia. They seem to like the guy.
I Can See Fine, Thank You
Nothing you said contradicts what I wrote.
What you're displaying here is learned helplessness. You, just like the weak-ass democratic leadership, are accepting the fact that republicans can prevent a duly elected president from appointing judges. "Advise and consent," does not mean sabotage.
The whole system has been sabotaged by traitors to the democratic experiment abetted by people like Manchin. We should not be looking at ways to get more Manchins, we should be looking at ways to eliminate the influence of people like Manchin. He's been coddled like the toddler he is, and we've gotten what....a few more judges then we would've had otherwise? For 2 years? And then nothing will get done for the next who knows how long as gerrymandered minority rule is further entrenched by the saboteurs.
What are you talking about?
You need 51 Senators (or 50 + the VP) to get a federal justice confirmed. That's the US constitution. And gerrymandering doesn't apply to the Senate.
Either you find 51 votes or you don't. There's no alternative.There are no other tools. The filibuster is stupid and a fairly recent invention but it's not clear the Dems would have 51 votes in the Senate for a whole lot even without it. (And come 2025 you should pray the filibuster still exists, least abortion get banned nationwide.)
Go ahead and hate Manchin but he was legitimately elected. The guy is popular in his state too, unlike the dope from Arizona.
"We Need to Learn From Manchin"
That's what you said. As I've said repeatedly, the only thing we need to learn from Manchin is democrats need to avoid putting themselves in position where they are subject to dishonest, cartoonishly corrupt actors like Manchin. The Senator from West Virginia has done worse than nothing by giving the democrats the appearance of a governing majority without actually allowing the majority to govern. Honestly, the unrepresentative senate itself needs to be abolished, but lets start with tools the democrats can use right now, when they lose in 2022 because of people like Manchin sabotaging the legislature.
The senate, under majority leader McConnell, would not hold a vote for a supreme court judge. This is a dereliction of his constitutional duty. Democrats should have jammed up congress every single day until a vote was held for Garland. Instead they rolled over and put out some mean tweets. I'm not a constitutional expert, but lets begin there.
So you prefer GOP positions?
Would you prefer Capito, VW's other Senator? You know, the conservative. If Manchin didn't win, there'd just be another Capito and Mitch McConnell would be Senate Majority Leader. Would you prefer that?
Manchin votes with Biden 96% of the time. Capito is at 55%. In fact, Manchin votes with Biden more than Markey! (538 for the stats.)
As I've been saying repeatedly, the only people who matter are those who can get elected in their districts. However bad you think things are now, it would be worse without Manchin.
The idea of Manchin being replaced by a Progressive in WV is laughable. It be like a Texan saying Cruz could beat Warren if he moved Massachusetts.
We Need a Real Party That Will Meet the Moment
You're arguing a strawman. I was taking issue with your opinion that the democratic party needs to use Manchin as an example for how to succeed, not that I thought a progressive could replace him in WV.
You keep saying Manchin always votes with Biden, when you obviously know that they are forced get his approval before passing anything, so yeah every weak sauce pro-fossil fuel bill he likes will pass, and anything that might be truly progressive won't. 2 years of pathetic floundering like this by the majority party is going to make things worse in 2022 and beyond, not better.
We have an illegitimate supreme court. We have a house that will soon have a bigger minority slant because the impotent democratic party could do nothing to shore up voting rights, partially thanks to Manchin. Finally, we have a senate that doesn't represent the majority of Americans, where more Manchins aren't going to solve a damn thing. But we had a year and a half of some judges being appointed...so there's that.
Right...
You misspelled "appease". And hey, obviously appeasing so-called "centrists" like Manchin is the way forward because the Dems have been sprinting to the right for the past 40 years and it's worked so well that we are in our current enviable position.
"The political center is always described as the moderate place between the extremes of left and right, and fighting a war on two fronts against right and left. A closer reading of history should tell us the center is more inclined to make common cause with the right against the left, and this is because the center and the right share a commitment to corporate capitalism."
- Michael Parenti
Not true
No, the Democrats haven't haven't been shifting rightward. Current elected democrats are much, much more liberal as a group than they were in 2008 or 1992.
Manchin would be nearly powerless if the Dems had managed to win just 1 or 2 more Senate seats. But they didn't. They couldn't even win Maine.
Lies
The Democratic Party is certainly more left than it used to be, especially the college educated, white, upper-middle to upper class. Anyone who says otherwise is lying to themselves and others.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-the-democrats-have-shifted-left...
reading is fundamental
which of these things actually happened?
how did the primaries turn out for Sanders and Warren?
this is why you can’t just paste links to articles you haven’t read
ABORTION IS HEALTHCARE
And a human right.
Pro-abortion RIGHTS
If we had a world where those who claim to be pro-life actually worked toward making parenthood possible, abortion would still be necessary medical care (pregnancy can be very dangerous) but far less common.
See also: The Netherlands. Low abortion rates, high degree of reproductive healthcare, early sex education and contraceptive access, and social and material support for parents.
Only the US forces you to
Only the US forces you to give birth, while making you pay tens of thousands of dollars to give birth, while not letting you take time off to give birth.
IVF
Hell my wife and I got charged over $3k with insurance from the follow up appointments after a miscarriage. Now we're paying tens of thousands to even try and get pregnant again. We're older so there is elevated risk to my wife. If her life is at risk we currently have the option to save her but imagine if that was illegal? We'd be spending nearly $20k to potentially put my wife on an irreversible path towards an early and preventable death. How fucked up is that?
Abortion for one, abortion for all
As long as the rich have access to abortion so shall the poor. Period. That is the core issue here.
Until Clarence and Ginni are gone.
And the court is expanded to 12, the entire institution is tainted.
Even then, we still have the functioning alcoholic frat boy and that dead-eyed, no resume God Lady to contend with.
It's gonna be a slog, I just hope the kids care enough to fight.
Our first baby
We just had our first baby and fortunately we both work for companies that appreciate their workers. I had one month paternity leave and my girlfriend has 6 months maternity leave. There are so many adjustments and things to do and lack of sleep and physical healing for the first six months. It’s absolutely insane that people are expected to have a baby and just go back to work.
I realize this is slightly off topic, but the whole having a baby/abortion in the US is laughable. We’ll tell you what to do with the baby, but won’t support you once you have it. GTFO!
Also
For people that support forcing a woman to have a baby. What’s the argument for the scenario where she was raped? She’s supposed to have the baby and raise it as a constant reminder of the horrors she endured?
Yup
Yup.. or give it up for adoption... for all those willing and ready conservative pro lifers who wanna adopt a kid. /snark
Snark.. only because most of them want to 'save those babies' but don't want to take one themselves. That's someone else's problem.. BUT THEY SAVED A BABY, which is more important.
So they can be like Harmony Montgomery (I am see the report from DCF right now on twitter) where she was placed in foster care while their mom is a drug addict or meet their dad in prison. And in the end, get killed by both of them because she was the child they didnt want.
But its OK. WE SAVED A BABY.
Who gives a sh*t about the kid afterwards...
I'm not sure which is more offensive from the
forced birthers: the sanctimony or the hypocrisy. But I do enjoy their mistaken notion that their advocacy is somehow going to get them a step closer to heaven. I suspect Jesus has some bad news waiting for these people.
well
No Biblical Scholar here but... the Bible says Life begins at first breath. Not conception.
So it boggles my mind we're even having a discussion about this. because their thinking is all based on what God would want. According to God, Abortion doesn't exist in his eyes. So why the fuck are you worried about it.
Oh right some think tank long time ago decided to play on the heart strings of people and say abortion was killing babies and it was against God's will. People, who don't know the passages in the Bible correctly, went along with it. Now, much like a case of mono at a make out party full of high schoolers.... it spread like wild fire and now has become 'fact'.
Some days I think this whole issue is God's way of testing Christians to see if they read passages and understand them. Obviously not.
It'll be a fine day when St Peter is waving all of us liberals in and stopping the 'christians' at the door.
It goes beyond that
Exodus 21:22-23 clearly states that a fetus is not as valuable as an adult human, and Numbers 5:11-22 describes a process by which a woman is deliberately caused to miscarry. You could argue that, if anything, there should be a religious right to abortion.
Fine for philosophical debate
and I see these point brought up a lot, but for law and public policy it does not matter what is in the Bible. The US is not (yet) a Christian theocracy. The Bible can not be allowed to be the basis for law.
THanks!
Now I have something else to use in my argument :-)
Even more of a reason why this whole thing is silly stupid.
Even if she did
Even if she went through the forced birth process and gave birth to her rapist's child, do you think any of those anti-choice fuckwits would give one red cent toward her medical bills, loss of income, etc.?
"tRy gOd"
For AM radio has all the answers they need.
Uh huh
That is exactly what they want.
A society without abortion on demand is a society built on rape culture.
The argument is "just lay
The argument is "just lay back and enjoy it."
Please stop calling them "pro-life." They are not. They are forced birthers and should be called as such.
They are the farthest thing from pro-life there is.
Abortion denied is a form of rape.
But I just want to point out that not every woman who gives birth to a baby conceived by rape experiences horror when looking at her child.
I say that because a young man I used to know had been told by his parents that his mother had been raped and that was why he was biracial while his parents were not. They chose to go forward with the pregnancy and raise their son and never regretted it because he grew up to be a fine upstanding well balanced young man.
The experience of horror
The whole approach that the left has taken in trying to defend abortion rights based on awful situations and outcomes has been a massive strategic blunder. A woman seeking abortion should not have to produce documents showing how much mental trauma she will suffer, how likely she is to die, how much she will lose in wages and opportunities, or ANYTHING ELSE. Saying "No one wants to have an abortion" is both false and irrelevant, and reframed the question into one where women might be granted abortions only if they regretted it enough. Crafting legislation with carve-outs for women who were victims of rape or who had medical issues was a terrible mistake, creating the false premise that abortion should require exceptional circumstances and then derailing the debate into technicalities of what "exceptional" is The tone of so-called pro-choice individuals and politicians has all too often been apologetic, defensive, attempting to appease. This was a mistake. The goal should always have been abortion on demand, no ifs ands or buts.
This is not what I voted for.
This is not what I voted for. Can't the President of the United States make it legal?
If you have to ask, I am not
If you have to ask, I am not sure you should be voting without taking a couple more civics lessons ;-)
Hopefully someday soon
Hopefully someday soon everyone will understand the law behind this decision and stop with the hysterical drama.
Ok, I'll bite
OK, I'll bite. What law? The 14th Amendment?
Oh, wait...
"Hysterical Drama"
That's an interesting word choice there, "Karen"
Home protests anyone?
Activist groups are being directed to protest at the homes of six Supreme Court justices under the name “Ruth Sent Us.”
https://newschannel9.com/amp/news/nation-world/pro-choice-groups-direct-...
Arguably...
...Ruth did indeed send them, just maybe not in the way her fans are thinking.