A Texas judge just personally canceled the abortion drug Mifepristone, and his decision has caused quite the rhymes-with-ruckus. The legal group filing the lawsuit, Alliance Defending Freedom, was chuffed enough about stripping freedom from 85 million American women that they probably would have taken the case pro-boner. The most interesting aspect of the decision, though, is the so-called “standing” of the plaintiffs in the case.
In theory, someone bringing a lawsuit should be able to demonstrate that they personally are or might some day be harmed by the law or action being challenged. If the drug is as dangerous as its detractors contend, for instance, American women would appear to have standing to bring the suit, but they have declined to, in droves. Millions of American women have used the drug in the last 23 years, with a death rate of .0005%. (By comparison, the risk of death by Viagra is ten times greater, with most victims succumbing after smacking themselves hard in the face, or tipping over, or being shot by their wives.)
Anyway, American women were not involved here, or considered particularly important. The plaintiffs included an assortment of anti-abortion groups, including the Christian Dental Association (a.k.a. “Holy Molars”), and three individual doctors. The doctors were simply undone by the possibility that they might some day be required to come to the aid of one of those five-in-a-million women suffering an incomplete miscarriage after using the abortion pill. The standing of the plaintiffs would have been increased significantly if they had included a few letter carriers expected to drop off the drugs in mail slots, before going straight to Hell. Instead, it was these doctors.
You have to admire their sensitivity. Imagine the horror of being confronted by a woman hemorrhaging profusely and asking for help! What if she has a fetus somewhere in there! Is the doctor expected to be party to an abortion? It’s unthinkable. Unsurvivable! His very soul is at stake. He should be free to fold his arms in front of the suffering woman and the remains of her fetus, and let God decide.
Okay. It seems a little sketchy, though, in terms of standing. Surely it is more apt that the FDA approval of Viagra should be revoked on behalf of millions of tired women who now refer to their own crotches as “the dead zone” and who think thirty years of faking orgasms was plenty good enough and they’d just like to park it with a good book and a pitcher of Pinot without having some man in stinky socks and a sweaty undershirt climbing all over them every night for the rest of her life. That’s standing.
But back to those three anxious doctors.
I believe they really need to have a little more skin in the game. And I know just the skin. I know what you’re thinking, but no, I don’t mean the deflated post-neutering ballsack with the crucifix tattoo, although that would demonstrate sincerity. That’s not near enough skin for this game.
Anyone bringing this lawsuit should acquire a minimum of four small children to take care of personally, or three if one of them has special needs, and lest they be tempted to hire out help, they should be relieved of any income above the federal minimum wage of $14,500 a year. In addition, the successful plaintiff should be required to demonstrate they have put on eighty pounds and can’t sneeze without doodling in their shorts anymore.
Assuming they are men, they should be further advised they will no longer be attractive, and should they protest that their weight and irritability has never kept the ladies away before, they should be reminded that they no longer have money.
We’ll see what the sitting Supreme Court justices have to say about standing. Meanwhile, encouraged by the success in Texas, anti-abortion activists are now setting their sights on the bleach and knitting-needle industries. Get going on those sweaters pronto.
Those plaintiffs would seem so much nicer if they just smiled once in a while.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
The less-than Supremes upheld the former status quo, by a 7-2 vote, with Thomas and Alioto voting against. So, for the moment it’s still available.
This should not be construed to mean that if it comes to a vote to keep the drug if and when it returns to the court it’ll be ruled that the court is not the place to approve the safety of the drug…the Supremes have already dipped their toe up to the knee in that pond when they ruled that Roe was invalid.
Since Roberts was confirmed, the court has made it’self from a judicial body into a political one, with a right wing majority. The current group has 4 members who rule in favor of any republican right wing issue without even hearing the evidence, and the Chief Justice has quit trying to be non-partisan.
Our chief worry should be (I think) the issue of ‘can one state prosecute people in another state, or prohibit travel with the intent of getting an abortion. I think there are probably 4 for sure yes votes, three no, and who knows where Roberts will land.
I do know I have three daughters (one daughter in law included) who are ready to burn the m-f’er down. I’ll carry the gas for them.
I’ll light the fucking match! I’m way past the age when I need to fear pregnancy. (And, yes. When I was young, I feared it so much that I NEVER had sex before menopause without using some form of contraception.) But THIS issue really stirs me up. When I was young, I always relied on having abortion as a “back-up plan” in case my birth control method failed. But what do these young women have now?
Why, they have the state to thank for compelling them to fulfill their maternal, nurturing destiny, and they’ll be grateful.
Yeah… but one of the myriad of reasons I didn’t want to have kids is that I am NOT maternal. Or nurturing. That’s why I made an inadequate “health care provider’ for my mom when she had Alzheimer’s. I’m not cut out for that stuff, but I HAD to do it, as she had “too much money” for any assistance, and not enough money for me to hire someone to spell me once or twice a week. It was the most difficult time of my life. I can only imagine what it’s like to have to have a special needs child for the rest of your life. AND be a single mom. I KNOW someone like that in my neighborhood. I don’t know how she does it.
I can’t wait for conception to begin at ‘lusting in your heart’. Then what are all those guys gonna do?
Pretty sure a guy should get prison time for jacking off.
Slam dunk! And you know those rich republicans will know a doctor who will “understand” when someone’s mistress or daughter is in an awkward situation.
They’re not heartless, you know.
I just watched a young woman from Texas (naturally) testify in front of that august body of white haired Senators and skewer John Cronyn with a graphic description of her late term miscarriage where she nearly died as a direct consequence of the ghastly abortion laws gleefully passed in Texas. My blood is still boiling!
I saw that too. I think the particular targets of her ire had excused themselves from the chamber.
If the powers that be are anything like the COVID-denying anti-vaxxer who got in my face for wearing a mask at a public gathering, no amount of eloquence will move them. The only thing that moved the idiot who confronted me was the sudden realization that I was taller, heavier, stronger and getting pissed off enough to pound some reality into him.
My plan is to raise my fist and yell “freedom!” In their face.
Schumer says the Senate will vote on the ERA this week. Let’s get this amendment added to the Constitution, then we can start arguing over whether a man get get a prescription for mifepristone.
You know they will never pass it. And if they are going to go after the abortion pill because they deem it “unsafe.” then why not go after Viagra? The older women of the world would be eternally grateful. I hear about all these old people having sex at a ripe old age, and I think… I just wanna get some sleep and not have to act like I’m enthusiastic! Fortunately, my husband’s libido has slowed down as well, so I COULD get more sleep… if I didn’t have post-menopausal insomnia. D’oh!!
Really? Huh!
I mean about the ERA. I hadn’t heard that.
can get
The Right’s extreme attitudes on abortion (and gun rights) will lead to the eventual demise of the Republican Party…
‘
AMEN!
AMEN!
From your lips to god’s ears. (Is that an expression that an atheist can say?)
Well I can–I have a direct line.
The Republican Party will be (already has been?) replaced by an American White Patriarchal Christian Theofascist Party. I don’t call that demise. Should I call it evolution? Or I could use this Chondrichthyesian metaphor: Sand Tiger Shark embryos cannibalize each other in utero, and the single most vicious one survives to be born.
We are devo.
An addendum: My oldest, Kate, and her sister Emily have started some gofundme pages for trans women and men asking for help to get out of Florida. I’ve read the trans people trying to get out, and they are in fear of their lives. They have been threatened, followed and harassed.
What a nation we’ve become.
I’ve been asked for places in the NW it would be safe for them to come, and after thinking, the places I come up with are all in British Columbia.